New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea of Fedders Lloyd Corporation that challenged a decision of a tax tribunal to levy excise duty on its air-conditioners.

The tax department had issued show-cause notice to Fedders Lloyd for evading Rs 56.14 lakh in excise duty during October 1991 to April 1996 for supplying split ACs from its Mumbai unit to customers in Gujarat and Goa. The company had first moved the Customs, Excise Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal and then approached the apex court after the tribunal upheld the tax department's view.

An apex court Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan said, "The contention of the appellant (FLC) that there is no manufacture at their Bombay unit stands belied and cannot be accepted... We have no reason to differ with the concurrent findings on facts recorded by the authorities that the appellant was indeed manufacturing the split ACs."

The court noted that the issue of clearing complete units of air-conditioners from its Mumbai branch was evident from the depositions of the company's own employees and the partners of New Gold Air-Conditioners who had supplied the cooling units and the invoice submitted by it.

Rejecting the company's contention that no change in name, character and use of the product or transformation of the raw material into finished product came into existence, Justice Bhan said the cooling units or condensing units by themselves cannot function as ACs.

Source : PTI