TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1956 (3) TMI 21
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal, Guntur. The facts are simple. The petitioner is the proprietor of Prabhat Tape Manufacturing Company, Palakol, and obtained a licence under section 5 of the Madras General Sales Tax Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) to deal in cloth woven on handloom wholly or partly with mill yarn. During the year 1952-53, he sold nawar tape of the value of Rs. 48,337 and cla....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... exemption, namely, to encourage the production of hand-woven cloth or to help weavers whose livelihood depends upon that industry, applies as much to nawar tape as to cloth, for both are woven on handloom with mill yarn and by the same class of persons to whom the protection is designed. We cannot stretch the language of a statutory provision to bring it in accord with a supposed legislative inte....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....aring for both parties relied upon the dictionary meanings of the words "cloth" and "tape". Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. II, page 522-Cloth: "(1) a piece of pliable, woven or felted stuff, suitable for wrapping or winding round, spreading or folding over, drying, wiping or other purpose. (2) A name given, in the most general sense, to every pliant fabric woven, felted, or otherwise formed, of a....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....rial woven in narrow bands. In the context of the present section and in view of the essential distinction between cloth and tape and, above all, in view of the secondary meanings the said words have acquired in popular parlance, we have no hesitation to hold that the word "cloth" in section 5(iii) could not take in nawar tape. It is then contended that the petitioner is entitled to the exemption....