Specific sales tax notification prevails over general entry; sewai-ki-machine treated as machinery and taxed under later rate.

A sewai-ki-machine was held not to fall within the general brassware entry under the earlier sales tax notification, because a specific single-point notification issued under the notwithstanding provision displaced the general rate to that extent. The court construed "machinery" in its ordinary and functional sense as an appliance that transmits and transforms force, and found the sewai-ki-machine answered that description. As no other applicable single-point notification covered it, the later notification applied and the goods were taxable at the notified rate at the point of import or manufacture.

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Issues: (i) Whether sewai-ki-machine was brassware taxable at 3 per cent under the notification dated 1st December, 1962; (ii) whether sewai-ki-machine was machinery taxable at 6 per cent under the notification dated 1st October, 1965.

Issue (i): Whether sewai-ki-machine was brassware taxable at 3 per cent under the notification dated 1st December, 1962.

Analysis: The notification under section 3 of the U.P. Sales Tax Act applied generally to brasswares, but section 3-A operated notwithstanding section 3 and enabled single-point taxation of specified goods at a notified rate. Where a commodity is specifically brought within the later section 3-A notification, liability under the earlier section 3 notification is displaced to that extent. The instrument in question was treated as falling within the later and more specific notification if it was machinery.

Conclusion: The question was answered in the negative and against the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether sewai-ki-machine was machinery taxable at 6 per cent under the notification dated 1st October, 1965.

Analysis: Machinery was construed in its ordinary and generic sense as an instrument or appliance whereby force is transmitted and transformed from one point to another. On that basis, the sewai-ki-machine, which works only by transmitting and transforming force, fell within the meaning of machinery. In the absence of any other section 3-A notification applicable to sewai-ki-machine, the 1st October, 1965 notification applied and the goods were taxable at the notified rate at the point of import or manufacture. Common parlance also supported classification as machinery.

Conclusion: The question was answered in the affirmative and against the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered by holding that sewai-ki-machine was not brassware for the lower rate notification, but was machinery exigible to tax under the later single-point notification at 6 per cent.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a goods entry is covered by a specific single-point notification issued under a notwithstanding provision, that notification prevails over a general sales tax notification, and machinery is to be understood in its ordinary and functional sense in common parlance.

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