Industrial machinery classification excludes sewing machines under entry tax when ordinary and commercial meaning is applied.

Entry 7 of the Karnataka entry tax schedule was interpreted in its ordinary and commercial sense, so "industrial machinery" covers machinery generally used by an industrial unit for manufacturing or processing goods. Sewing machines were treated as domestic appliances or ordinary tailoring implements, not machinery primarily used in industry, and therefore do not fall within the entry. The later Explanation III was read as confirming that limited scope rather than expanding it. A departmental clarification treating sewing machines as taxable regardless of use was considered inconsistent with the entry and the Explanation, so the proposed levy under entry 7 does not apply.

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Issues: Whether sewing machines are exigible to entry tax as "industrial machinery" under entry 7 of the Schedule to the Karnataka Tax on Entry of Goods into Local Areas for Consumption, Use or Sale therein Act, 1979, and whether the departmental clarification could support such levy.

Analysis: Entry 7 was construed in the context of the scheme of the Schedule, which separately enumerated distinct classes of goods. The expression "industrial machinery" was understood in its common and commercial sense as machinery generally used by an industrial unit for manufacturing or processing of goods. Sewing machines, by their ordinary use, design and purpose, were treated as domestic appliances or ordinary tailoring implements rather than machinery primarily used in industry. The later Explanation III, inserted to clarify the scope of entry 7, was read as confirming that only machinery generally used by an industrial unit for manufacturing or processing would fall within the entry. The departmental clarification treating sewing machines as taxable irrespective of use was held to be inconsistent with the entry and the Explanation.

Conclusion: Sewing machines are not "industrial machinery" for the purposes of entry 7, and the proposed levy under that entry fails.

Ratio Decidendi: In interpreting a taxing entry for goods, the classification must follow the ordinary and commercial meaning of the goods as understood in common parlance, and a clarification or explanation cannot be used to expand the entry beyond machinery generally used in industrial manufacture or processing.

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