Manufacture includes assembling adapted components into a distinct commercial product with separate identity, use and market.

Assembling and adapting purchased components can amount to manufacture under the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941 when the finished product emerges as a distinct commercial commodity with separate identity, use and market. The tribunal found that the dealer did not merely resell a generator or manufacture a trolley simpliciter, but created an emergency mobile power pack unit by integrating the generator, trolley, fan, light, switch board and wires. The activity was therefore manufacture, and the orders treating the dealer as a trolley manufacturer only were unsustainable; registration and eligibility certificate relief followed.

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Issues: Whether the process of assembling a generator, trolley, fan, light, switch board and wires resulted in manufacture of an emergency mobile power pack unit, or whether the dealer was only manufacturing a trolley and reselling the generator; and whether the registration and eligibility certificate had to be granted on that footing.

Analysis: The statutory definition of manufacture under the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941 was wide enough to include producing, making, altering, finishing, treating or adapting goods. The decisive test was whether the process brought into existence a different commercial commodity with a separate identity, use and market. The dealer did not merely sell the generator in the same form in which it was purchased. By assembling and adapting the constituent items into a composite unit meant for emergency power supply and distribution, a new commercial product emerged. The separate marketability and utility of the finished unit showed that the activity was manufacture and not mere resale or manufacture of a trolley simpliciter.

Conclusion: The activity amounted to manufacture of the emergency mobile power pack unit and not merely of a trolley. The orders treating the dealer as a manufacturer of trolley only were unsustainable, and the reliefs sought for registration and eligibility certificate were warranted in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The applications were allowed, the impugned orders were set aside, and the authorities were directed to recognise the emergency mobile power pack unit as the manufactured goods for the relevant tax benefits.

Ratio Decidendi: In sales tax law, assembling and adapting purchased components amounts to manufacture when the finished product emerges as a distinct commercial commodity with its own identity, use and market.

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