In Brief
Dinesh Textiles, a trader in cotton textiles, obtained goods manufactured through multiple job workers without paying excise duty, claiming liability rested only with the job workers. When one job worker's clearances exceeded Rs. 25 lakhs, the tax authority demanded duty on the trader's entire aggregate clearances (over Rs. 1.77 crore across 70+ job workers). The Supreme Court upheld the demand, holding that Rule 12B of the Central Excise Rules treats the trader as an assessee for all purposes, and the Exemption Notification emphasizes aggregate value of clearances, not individual job worker clearances. Therefore, once the aggregate exceeds the statutory limit, duty is due on all clearances—otherwise traders could circumvent duties by splitting work among multiple job workers.",
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