Full Judgment
2. M/s. Electricals supplied armatures to' the Railways for carriage fans during the period 8-9-73 to 13-2-75. They say that they bought 7307 armatures from Shyama Electricals and sold 7050 of these to the Railways. The central excise officers made inquiries in -April 1975 and were told that they purchased the armatures from Shyama Electricals. It is said that this Shyama Electricals firm went out of the business and closed their factory around February 1975. In the proceedings against Raka Electricals the Central Excise issued a demand for Rs. 61,299.75 on 7050 armatures which had been removed without payment of duty.
3. The defence of the notice receivers was that Shyama Electricals existed at the address given by them from September 1973 to 18-2-1975 and that therefore it was Shyama Electricals who manufactured the 7050 armatures and not the appellants, and therefore the duty liability should rest on Shyama Electricals.
4. The arguments of the learned counsel Mr. Jain on behalf of M/s. Raka Electricals was mainly that the goods manufactured were armatures and not rotors. In Government of India notification No. 28/60-CE dated 1-3-1960, parts of electricals motors other than stator and rotors were exempted from duty. The central excise called their armatures rotors but this according to the learned counsel is mistaken, because armatures are not rotors. Rotors are components only of alternating current motors. These components supplied by them are armatures used in railway carriage fans and are components of direct current motors.
Rotors did not have armature winding but only laminations. There is a distinct and clear contrast between armatures and rotors : an armature can never be a rotor. This was the foundation on which the learned Mr.
Jain based his arguments on behalf of M/s. Raka Electricals; he strongly relied on this to counter the department's case.
5. The learned counsel for the Department Mr. Ajwani, SDR said that the Collector and the Board's adjudication were correct and the appeal deserved to be rejected.
6. We need only consider the very elementary question of whether the armature supplied by M/s. Raka Electricals to the Railways is a rotor or not. A rotor is defined as : The rotating member of an electrical machine or device, such as the rotating armature of a motor or a generator or the rotating plates of a variable capacitor. [Me Graw Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. II edition by Me Graw Hill Book Company].
That part of an electric rotating machine that includes the main current carrying winding in which the electromotive force produced by magnatic flux rotation is induced; it may be rotating or stationary.
7. It is clear from the above that an armature is not antonymous with the rotor nor is a rotor antithetical to an armature. It is dependent on the construction of the device or machinery, but as a general rule, the armature is the current carrying winding that moves in a magnetic field to produce the electricity which, in the generator is carried from the machines by contact brushes etc. The magnetic field is created when the armature winding with the field coils, that generally speaking, form the stationary member or the stator, of the device, are excited by a current of electricity creating torque forces which is exerted and so moves the member which is not rigidly fixed, that is the rotor. Generally speaking again, the rotor is the centre piece in the assembly and it is on this that all turning/rotating parts such as the blades of fan are attached. When the torque force is exerted the inner (rotor) member, being not fixed turns in the field and produces the motion. In certain devices, however, the rotor is assembled as the outside member, and not the centre piece, as in some ceiling fans. The entry card conveyance of electricity is done therefore when in the generator, electricity is to be carried off to a outside point, and this is done by drawing the electricity induced in the armature through commutator or slip rings as the case may be. In reverse, when a motor is activated by electricity, the torque produces the turning motion of the rotor thus producing mechanical energy which is used at an outside point of application.
8. We will quote another authority. The Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers Fink and Beaty 11th Edition : Me Graw Hill Book Company writes : Direct current motors are practically identical in construction to direct current generators with minor adjustments, the same direct current machine may be operated either as a motor or as a generator.
The main difference between the motor and generator is the way in which they are used or in the direction of energy conversion, i.e.
electrical to mechanical for the motor and mechanical to electrical for the generator. [page 20-1] 9. The learned counsel for M/s. Raka Electricals was mistaken in his submission that alternating current motors have no armatures but only electrical laminations. The following paragraph in the same book will clear this point : An alternating current generator consists principally of a magnetic circuit dc field winding, ac armature winding and mechanical structure including cooling and lubricating system. The magnetic circuit and field windings are arranged so that, as the machine rotates the magnetic flux linking the armature winding changes cyclinically, thereby inducing alternating voltage in the armature winding. [page 7-1] 10. The learned counsel for M/s. Raka electricals also said that alternating motors have no commutators, but the following on page 20-66 will correct this mistaken notion : As compared with the induction motor, the ac commutator motor possesses two of the advantages of the dc motor : a wide speed range without sacrifice of efficiency, and superior starting ability. In the induction motor, the starting torque is limited by the small space-phase displacement between the air-gap flux and the induced secondary current and by magnetic saturation of the flux paths....
in the accommutator motor, on the other hand, the air-gap flux and current are held at the optimum space-phase displacement by proper location of the brush axis, and the secondary current is not limited by magnetic saturation giving high torque per ampere at starting.
11. There has been general misconception that an armature cannot be a rotor. The rotor is the opposite member of the stator in a electrical device like the generator or a motor; it is the member that turns while the other member, stator, remains stationary; these movements in the magnetic field lies behind the principle of electrical generation and electrical motion. The members in both the motor and the generator are the same and there must always be a rotating member to a non-rotating or stationary member if the principle of electromagnetic induction is to be put to work. There is no rule that only the inner component must rotate; in certain construction the outer device rotates and this rotating part is the rotor. There is no rule that only a dc motor should have a commutator; ac motors can also carry commutators since the presence of a commutator bring certain desirable properties in electrical induction. Nor is there any rule that only the alternating current device must have a rotor. All devices whether generators or motors, whether alternating current or direct current, have a rotor and a stator; otherwise the principle of electromagnetic induction simply cannot come into operation. And there is no rule that a rotor cannot have an armature windings.
12. The samples produced by the learned Mr. Jain at the hearing were clearly armature that carry the centre core on which the blades or arms of the fans are attached. The blades of the fans rotates because this centre piece core of the motor rotates. This centre piece carries the armature and is a rotor. It is therefore, not eligible to the exemption under Notification No. 28/60-CE. There is no authority to say that these goods are not known in the trade as rotors. As a matter of fact the trade deals only in armatures, field coils or alternators. It is doubtful if anybody in the trade understands the difference between a rotor, a stator, or an armature. They may know the parts but they are not likely to know the principle of the parts such as what it is that makes a part or component a rotor or stator. A rotor and stator are only known by the name of armature or field coils etc. There is therefore, no point of talking of the trade not knowing these as armature. In any case they are indeed as Mr. Jain claims armatures, but they are rotors too.
13. We have difficulty in understanding the arguments about Shyama Electricals, they were manufacturers of armature till February 1975, but suddenly disappeared. The Collector is ambiguous in respect of Shyama Electricals saying at page 4 of his order that : Even if the party's contention that M/s. Shyama Electricals manufacturers existed during the relevant period is accepted, M/s.
Raka Electricals are the manufacturers as defined under Section 2(f) of the Central Excises and Salt Act 1944.
14. He does not say clearly whether M/s. Shyama Electricals are accepted as manufacturers or not. We have our own doubts. It would seem Raka Electricals conjured up Shyama Electricals in order to explain away their past manufactures of armature which were supplied to the Railways without payment of the duty. We are not convinced by this explanation and therefore we will not interfere with the orders of the Central Board of Excise and Customs.