TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1998 (11) TMI 527
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....nt of the Court was delivered by S.P. BHARUCHA, J.-The principal judgment and order under appeal and the orders following it, also under appeal, were passed by a Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh on writ petitions filed by the appellants. 2.. Very briefly stated, the facts are these: The appellants purchase iron and steel scrap from the Bhilai Steel Plant and other parties. The scrap, in the form of defective angles, flats, channels, tubes and coils is of very considerable size. The appellants cut down the scrap so that it may be utilised by roiling mills and forging parts manufacturers, gear and pinion manufacturers and dye block manufacturers. The question is whether such cutting down, with the help of shearing m....
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....available subject to the condition, inter alia, that it, "shall be available only in respect of the sales of the goods which the dealer is licensed to manufacture and which are manufactured by him as also waste and by-products obtained in the course of manufacture." 4.. Under the terms of the said notification the appellants obtained eligibility certificates from the District Level Committees established for the purpose, after due enquiry and verification. The State Level Committees, after the lapse of some time, issued to the appellants notices requiring them to show cause why their eligibility certificates in so far as they related to iron and steel scrap processing should not be cancelled on the ground that no manufacture of new items r....
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.... of new articles. The said notification also indicated this when it stated that the exemption thereunder would not be available to "pressing of iron/steel scrap into blocks". Reliance was placed upon a notification issued on 1st October, 1978, under the said Act wherein it was stated that the "slaughtering of animals and obtaining meat, hides and skins" would not be treated as a process of manufacture for the purpose of the definition of "manufacture" in section 2(j). Reference was made to an order passed on 9th February, 1993, by the Board of Revenue, Madhya Pradesh, where the very same issue was considered in relation to some of the appellants in the context of suo motu orders passed by the Deputy Commissioner of Sales Tax holding that t....
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....tutes do not apply unless the definition of that word in the particular statute under consideration is similar to that construed in the decisions. The plain construction of the special definition of the word in a particular Act must prevail. In the special definition given in section 2(j) of the said Act "manufacture" has been defined as including a process or manner of producing, collecting, extracting, preparing or making any goods. There can be no doubt whatsoever that "collecting" goods does not result in the production of a new article. There is, therefore, inherent evidence in the definition itself that the narrow meaning of the word "manufacture" was not intended to be applied in the said Act. Again, the definition speaks of "the pro....