Accessory classification requires the principal article to be electrical goods; stay-wires for electric posts were excluded.

Stay-wires used to support electric posts were held not to fall within item 26 of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act as electrical goods or as accessories to electrical goods. The decisive point was that an accessory must relate to a principal article that itself answers the description of electrical goods, and electric posts were not treated as electrical goods in their ordinary meaning. Supportive use alone, or the fact that electricity does not pass through the stay-wires, was insufficient to bring them within the entry. The same reasoning excluded assessment under item 26, leaving the multi-point scheme inapplicable on that basis.

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Issues: Whether stay-wires used for supporting electric posts are classifiable as "electrical goods" or "accessories" under item 26 of the First Schedule to the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, or whether their assessment falls under the multi-point scheme under section 5 of the Act.

Analysis: Item 26 covers all electrical goods and also accessories and component parts, but the relevant accessory must be an accessory in relation to electrical goods. The decisive question was therefore whether electric posts could themselves be treated as electrical goods. The Court held that, applying the ordinary and well-understood meaning of the entry, electric posts could not be regarded as electrical goods. The fact that stay-wires support electric posts, or that electricity is not passed through them, was not decisive; what mattered was whether the principal article to which they were said to be accessory fell within the expression "electrical goods". The cited decisions on similar entries supported the same approach. The Supreme Court decision relied on by the assessee did not alter this result because, even if stay-wires could be treated as accessories, they were not accessories to electrical goods.

Conclusion: Stay-wires were not covered by item 26 as electrical goods or accessories to electrical goods, and the assessment was not required to be made under that entry.

Final Conclusion: The Tribunal's view in favour of the assessee was upheld, and the revision petitions were dismissed.

Ratio Decidendi: For an article to fall within an entry covering electrical goods and accessories, the principal article to which it is related must itself be electrical goods; a merely supportive or connected use does not suffice unless that essential classification is first established.

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