Full Judgment
2. We have heard both sides and carefully considered the submissions.
From the materials placed on record and technical literature in the form of the Penguin Dictionary of Information Technology and Computer Science it is seen that Winchester is a form of Rigid Disk drive that uses a non-removable rigid disk or stack of disks on spindle and this design has been accessed for most hard disk drives. The hard disk is a disk drive storage medium or tapes on which recording surface are rigid in contrast to floppy disk where the recording service is flexible. The same dictionary describes Winchester Disk as under :- "Winchester disk. A hard disk widely used with personal computers.
It is physically small, so that it can be fitted inside the processor unit of a personal computer or in a box that sits under the screen unit, and has flying heads that float some 10 to 20 microns above the recording surface. It has a storage capacity ranging from ten to several hundred megabytes. The drive is totally sealed, which makes the disk highly reliable but also non-removable.
It was invented at IBM's San Jose Laboratories in the 1970s.
'Winchester' was IBM's internal code name for the development project." The definition of magnetic storage contained in Glossary of Computers Today, 3rd Edition of Donald H. Sanders is utilisation of the magnetic properties of materials to store data on such devices and media as disk tapes and chips. The Winchester disk drive is no doubt to be considered as a Magnetic disk drive but this by itself is not sufficient, for determining whether the goods imported namely disk drive with Controller are entitled to the benefit of the notification. What is to be seen is whether the drive embedded with the controller is covered by the description "Winchester Disk Drive". It is seen from the Winchester hard disk plates with controller to its master cord storage system used bound with the computer and controller on a single expansion and this single body is also called controller because primary function and advantage in accompanying nature is taken for granted.
4. The ld. DR is correct in his submission that the addition of the controller which is a circuit permitting recording of data from the disk by the use of computer takes it out of the coverage of entry in Sl. No. l(b) of the Notification. The argument of the ld. Counsel for the Respondents that the benefit cannot be denied in view of the certificate issued by the Department of Electronics is not acceptable because the certificate covers magnetic disk and not disk drives with controller and we have already noted that addition of Controller [alter] the character of the disk drive because the controller is the one which acts as an interfacing to get the storage area for transfer of data from the storage area to the C.P.U. Since the Notification at Sl. No. l(b) covers only storage disk drive while the goods imported are disk drives with controller which we have held are not simple disk drive, the benefit of the notification cannot be extended to the imported goods. Accordingly, we set aside the impugned order and allow the Revenue Appeal.