(1) An excise duty or a countervailing duty, as the case may be, shall, if the State Government so direct, be levied on all excisable articles other than medicinal and toilet preparations specified for the time being in the Schedule to the Medical and Toilet Preparation (Excise Duties) Act, 1955 (No. 16 of 1955)—
(a) imported; or
(b) exported; or
(c) transported; or
(d) manufactured, cultivated or collected under any licence granted under Section 13; or
(e) manufactured any distillery established, or any distillery or brewery licensed, under this Act:
Provided that it shall be lawful for the State Government to exempt any excisable article from any duty to which the same may be liable under this Act.
(2) Duty may be imposed under sub-section (1) at different rates according
(i) the place to which any excisable article is to be removed; or
(ii) the strength and quality of excisable article; or
(iii) the use of excisable article for different purposes; or
(iv) The value of excisable articles based on principles as may be prescribed;
1[(v) 10% surcharge on the prescribed duty on excisable articles will be payable which shall be transferred to rural and urban local bodies on the basis of their population.]
(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1),
(i) duty shall not be imposed thereunder on any article which has been imported into India and was liable, on such importation, to duty under the Sea Customs Act, 1878 (VIII of 1878), or the Indian Tariff Act 1894 (VIII of 1894);
(ii) Omitted.
(4) Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to preclude the State Government from enhancing or reducing the rates of duty during the course of a financial year and the power to enhance or reduce the rate of duty shall include power to give retrospective effect to such enhancement or reduction from a date not earlier than the commencement of the financial year.
Subject to such rules regulating the time, place and manner as the State Government may prescribe, such duty shall be levied ratably on the quantity of excisable article imported, exported, transported, collected or manufactured in or issued from a distillery, brewery or warehouse:
Provided that—
(1) duty may be levied—
(a) on intoxicating drugs by an acreage rate levied on the cultivation of the hemp plant or by a rate charged* on the quajitity collected;
(b) on spirit or beer manufactured in any distillery established or any distillery or brewery licensed under this Act-
(i) in accoirdance with such scale of equivalents calculated on the quantity of materials used, or by the degree of attenuation of the wash or wort, as the case may be, as the State Government may prescribe, or;
(ii) by a rate charged directly on the materials used;
(c) on tari, by a tax on each tree from which the tari is drawn.
(2) Where payment is made upon the issue of an excisable article for sale from a warehouse, it shall be at the rate of duty in force on the date of issue of such article from the warehouse.
(3) Where the rate of duty is enhanced or reduced after payment of duty on issue of excisable article from warehouse and the excisable article is in stock with a holder of a licence, the excisable article in stock shall be subject to the levy of duty at the rate so enhanced or reduced and the difference in duty shall be payable or refundable, as the case may be, by or to the holder of a licence, with whom such duty paid excisable article is in stock at the material time.
(1) Instead of or in addition to any duty leviable under this Chapter, the State Government may accept payment of a sum in consideration of the grant of any lease under Section 18.
(2) Nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall be construed, to preclude the State Government from enhancing or reducing the sum received in consideration of a grant of any lease under Section 18 during the course of a financial year or during the currency of a licence and the power to enhance or reduce the sum shall include power-to give retrospective effect to such enhancement or reduction from a date not earlier than the commencement of the financial year.
(1) Until provision to the contrary is made by Parliament, the State Government may continue to levy any duty to which this section applies which it was lawfully levying immediately before the commencement of the Constitution under this Chapter as then in force.
(2) The duties to which this section applies are—
(a) any duty on intoxicants which are not excisable articles within the meaning of this Act;
(b) any duty on an excisable article produced outside India and imported into the State whether across a customs frontier as defined by the Central Government or not.
(3) Nothing in this section shall authorise the levy by the State Government of any duty which, as between goods manufactured or produced in the State and similar goods not so manufactured or produced discriminates in favour of the former, or which, in the case of goods manufactured or produced outside the State, discriminates between goods manufactured or produced in one locality and similar goods manufactured or pro'duced in another locality.