Exemption Notification Interpretation: Undefined Technical Terms Take Their Ordinary Meaning, Not Another Statute's Schedule

An exemption notification for goods under Item 68 was construed by reference to the ordinary and commercial meaning of its undefined terms. The Tribunal held that the meaning of "insecticides" in the notification could not be controlled by the schedule or definition in the Insecticides Act, 1968, because a definition from another statute dealing with a different subject should not be imported unless expressly adopted. On the materials before it, products used to prevent or repel insects could fall within the notification's use of insecticides or pesticides, so exemption could not be denied merely because the products were absent from the Insecticides Act schedule.

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Issues: Whether dibutyl phthalate and dimethyl phthalate, used as mite and insect repellents, were entitled to exemption as insecticides under the relevant excise notification, and whether the meaning of the notification depended on inclusion of the products in the Insecticides Act schedule.

Analysis: The exemption notification granted relief to goods described in the schedule appended to it and falling under Item 68. The decisive question was whether the expressions used in the notification had to be controlled by the definition and schedule contained in the Insecticides Act, 1968. The Tribunal held that a word in a statutory instrument, where undefined, must be understood in its ordinary or commercial sense, and it is hazardous to import a definition from another statute dealing with a different subject. The revenue's attempt to rely on the Insecticides Act schedule was inconsistent with its earlier stand in another matter on the same notification, where it had contended that the Insecticides Act did not govern the notification. On the materials placed, repellents intended to prevent or repel insects could be treated as insecticides or pesticides in the sense in which the notification used those words.

Conclusion: The products could not be denied exemption merely because they were not included in the schedule to the Insecticides Act, 1968, and the appeal failed.

Ratio Decidendi: In construing an exemption notification, undefined technical expressions must be given their ordinary or commercial meaning, and definitions in another statute not dealing with the same subject cannot be imported unless the notification expressly adopts them.

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