1950 (7) TMI 1

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....lt sold by him (excluding, of course, the price of the salt, which is exempted from sales tax) was illegally collected and ought to be refunded to him as salt could not be sold except after being put into gunny bags and he had merely purchased the gunny bags from dealers for the sake of filling them with salt and had included only the cost price of the gunny bags in the ultimate price charged by him for the salt bags. The learned District Judge held that only salt had been exempted from sales tax and not the gunny bags in which it had been packed and that the gunny bags could not be regarded as inevitably included in the exemption, and that anybody who buys and sells gunny bags, like the appellant, even though along with the salt, would be ....

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....ny bags or taken away the salt themselves. The Government, we understand, have been moved subsequently for the amendment of the rules and to exempt the price of gunny bags also from sales tax, and that they have conceded this demand. That itself shows that, originally, there was no such intention on the part of the Government to exempt the gunny bags, and this suit relates to the period when gunny bags were not exempted. On principle, it seems to us that any exemption of any article must be strictly construed and confined to the exemption itself and not extended. Thus, if salt is exempted, but not the gunny bags in which it is packed and sold, if we exempt the gunny bags without a special exemption to that effect, then gunny bags in which r....