M/s Air India?

By Vijay Kumar

THE Central Excise and customs Department is somehow obsessed with the title M/s. All Show Cause Notices to assessees begin with M/s. ABC Ltd is ...... Even in the clarification given above, Air India is referred to as M/s Air India.

M/s is actually a short form of Messrs, which is a plural of Mr.

The term M/S is generally placed before the names of partnership firms to indicate that it is firm comprising several partners and is not a sole proprietorship. For example M/s Dhariwal & Co indicates that the firm has partners other than Mr. Dhariwal and so it is a plural of Mr.

But the Customs and Central Excise Department mistakenly use it for public and private limited companies. These companies are treated as an artificial person and they are not a plural of Mr. So the title M/s is not suitable for them. You find hundreds of cases relating to M/s ONGC Ltd; M/s IOCL Ltd and M/s Reliance Industries Ltd – none of these are Messrs. But looks like the practise has caught on and cannot be changed now as everyone from range officer to Board and from Tribunal to Supreme Court are hooked on to M/s.