Common parlance test governs sales tax classification; burnt cinders are not coal or coke and are taxed as general goods.

Burnt cinders are not classified as "coal" or "coke" for sales tax purposes where the governing test is their common or popular meaning in trade and commerce. A residual or by-product character does not make cinders coal, and they are not coke because they are not produced by the controlled distillation process associated with coke. On that basis, burnt cinders fall outside item 1 of Schedule IV of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act and are assessable as general goods.

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Issues: Whether burnt cinders fall within the expression "coal" or "coke" in item 1 of Schedule IV of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act and are therefore not assessable as general goods under section 5(1) of the Act.

Analysis: The decisive test was the meaning of the commodity in common or popular parlance. Earlier decisions treating cinders as different from coal or coke were followed. The fact that cinders may be by-products or residual products of coal did not make them coal in the ordinary commercial sense. Coal is understood as the mineral as recovered from the earth or as a manufactured equivalent such as charcoal, whereas coke is a distinct product obtained by controlled distillation of coal. Burnt cinders are not obtained by that process and do not answer the description of coke or any form of coke.

Conclusion: Burnt cinders are neither coal nor coke within item 1 of Schedule IV and were rightly assessed as general goods. The revision failed.

Ratio Decidendi: For sales tax classification, a commodity must be understood in its common parlance or popular sense, and a residual by-product of coal does not become coal or coke unless it is ordinarily so understood in trade and commerce.

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