Ordinary meaning of "industry" controls customs exemption, excluding hospitals, nursing homes and dispensaries from concessional duty.

The expression "industry" in a customs exemption notification must be read in its commercial and ordinary sense, having regard to the purpose of the instrument. A definition of "industry" in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 cannot be bodily imported into the Customs Act, 1962 or a customs notification. On that construction, the wider labour-law definition was confined to its own enactment, while the term ordinarily connoted manufacture or production. Hospitals, nursing homes and dispensaries therefore did not qualify as industrial units for the exemption, and the claim to concessional customs duty failed.

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Issues: Whether hospitals, nursing homes and dispensaries fell within the expression "industry" in a customs exemption notification so as to entitle the importer to the concessional rate of duty.

Analysis: The expression "industry" in a taxing statute or exemption notification must be understood in its commercial and ordinary sense, having regard to the subject matter and purpose of the instrument. A definition of the same word in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 could not be bodily imported into the Customs Act, 1962 or a customs exemption notification. The wider industrial-disputes definition was confined to that enactment and, in any event, the constitutional usage of the term showed that "industry" ordinarily denoted the process of manufacture or production. On that approach, hospitals, dispensaries and nursing homes were not industrial units for the purpose of the exemption.

Conclusion: The expression "industry" in the notification did not include hospitals, nursing homes or dispensaries, and the concessional customs duty claim failed.

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