Set-off for corrugated boxes denied as packing material fell outside a notification limited to paper products.

Entry tax set-off under a notification confined to "paper products including exercise books" was held unavailable for corrugated boxes used as packing material. The court treated the State's contemporaneous clarification that the expression did not cover packing material as a permissible aid to interpretation and concluded that the notified entry could not be expanded by construction to include corrugated boxes. Reliance on a broader expression in another notification and on a Bombay High Court ruling on "paper of all kinds" was distinguished. The assessee was therefore not entitled to the claimed set-off, and the Revenue's appeal succeeded.

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Issues: Whether the assessee was entitled to set-off of entry tax paid on paper used for manufacturing corrugated boxes, on the footing that corrugated boxes fell within the expression "paper products including exercise books" in the relevant notification.

Analysis: The notification granting set-off was construed as applying only where the raw material or processing material was used in the manufacture of paper products falling within the notified expression. The clarification issued contemporaneously by the State Government stated that the expression did not cover packing material. The Court treated this contemporaneous construction as a permissible interpretative aid and held that corrugated boxes were packing material and therefore outside the scope of the notified entry. The argument based on a broader expression in a different notification and the Bombay High Court decision on "paper of all kinds" was found distinguishable.

Conclusion: The assessee was not entitled to the set-off claimed, and the Revenue's appeal was rightly allowed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an exemption or set-off notification is confined to specified paper products, packing material cannot be brought within it by interpretation, and contemporaneous departmental construction may be used to ascertain the scope of the notified entry.

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