Exemption for cotton fabrics did not extend to hosiery banyans where later notifications separately added hosiery goods.

Hosiery banyans were held not to fall within the exemption for "cotton fabrics" under item 23 of Schedule III of the 1 July 1959 sales tax notification. The notification scheme, read with later retrospective and subsequent amendments expressly adding hosiery cloth sold in lengths and cotton hosiery goods, showed that hosiery items were not treated as included in the general expression by implication. The broader Central excise definition of cotton fabrics was considered but did not control the narrower sense used in the State notification. The result was that hosiery banyans remained taxable and could not claim exemption.

---

---

Issues: Whether hosiery banyans were exempt from sales tax under item 23 of Schedule III of the notification dated 1 July 1959 by reason of the expression "cotton fabrics".

Analysis: The exemption notification had to be read with the subsequent retrospective notification of 5 August 1959, which expressly added hosiery cloth sold in lengths, and with the later notification of 19 October 1966, which expressly added cotton hosiery goods. The surrounding scheme showed that hosiery cloth and hosiery goods were not treated as included in the broad expression "cotton fabrics" in item 23. The definition of cotton fabrics in the Central excise law was also examined, but in the context of the State notification the expression was used in a narrower sense. Hosiery banyans were distinct from hosiery cloth and could not be brought within the exemption by implication.

Conclusion: Hosiery banyans were not exempt from sales tax under item 23 of Schedule III of the notification dated 1 July 1959, and the reference was answered against the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a taxing exemption notification later expressly includes a commodity by specific entry, the commodity cannot be treated as having been covered earlier by a general expression unless the notification clearly so provides.

---