Popular and commercial meaning controls fiscal entries: prawns are not "fish" for cess purposes.

In a fiscal enactment, a scheduled entry must be read in its popular or commercial sense, and a charging provision must be strictly construed without enlarging the levy by intendment or implication. Applying that principle, prawns were treated as a distinct commodity from fish in common parlance and trade, and their aquatic character alone did not bring them within Item 7 of the Schedule. The Court therefore declined to extend the expression "fish" to prawns, with the result that cess could not be levied on them under the Act.

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Issues: Whether prawns fall within the expression "fish" in Item 7 of the Schedule to the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Produce Cess Act, 1940, so as to attract cess under Section 3 of the Act.

Analysis: The scheduled entry in a fiscal enactment must be understood in its popular or commercial sense and not in a scientific, zoological, or dictionary sense. The charging provision has to be strictly construed, and nothing can be read into the statute by intendment or implication. On the facts, prawns and fish are distinct commodities in common parlance and in trade, and the mere fact that both are aquatic does not make prawns part of the scheduled item "fish". No process of transformation brings prawns within that entry, and the Court declined to extend the levy by interpretation.

Conclusion: Prawns are not covered by the expression "fish" in the Schedule and cess cannot be levied on them under the Act. The challenge succeeds and the levy is set aside in favour of the assessee.

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