1964 (7) TMI 23

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....evy. In the year of assessment the appellant who is a manufacturer of sandalwood oil had a very large turnover in sandalwood oil exceeding rupees eleven lakhs, the bulk of which were export sales and about rupees a lakh and odd were sales in this State. The assessing authority levied tax on the single point basis at 6 per cent. on the sales treating them as falling under serial No. 51, which refers to "scents and perfumes, powders, snows, and scented hair oils". The assessee appealed to the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal. In the view of the majority of the Tribunal sandalwood oil was a perfume within this category. But the dissentient minority opinion of the Accountant Member was that it fell under serial No. 6(a) of the Second Schedule, w....

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....ely was supplied to us by the learned counsel for the petitioner. It defines "perfume" as any mixture of pleasantly odoriferous substances incorporated in a suitable vehicle. The constituents of a perfume are three-fold: (i) a vehicle or solvent, (ii) a fixative, and (iii) an odoriferous element. The vehicle is usually a preparation of highly refined ethyl alcohol mixed with more or less water. Fixatives are defined as substances which are of a lower volatility than the odoriferous elements and which retard and even up the rate of evaporation of the various odorous constituents. They may be of animal nature like civet or they may be of vegetable nature like resin. Odoriferous elements include essential oils which are defined as volatile odo....

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....a common perfume. It has to be rubbed hard on the hand or some other part of the body so that the temperature can be raised by friction and better vaporisation takes place. Therefore it has to be used in mixture with other substances like oil or alcohol or soap so that the resultant product can emit the peculiar perfume characteristic of sandal. Learned counsel for the Government Pleader urged that for construing the meaning of the word, its ordinary meaning should be used and not the technical meaning. A reference to the various articles mentioned in serial No. 51 of Schedule I shows that they are ordinary articles used for cosmetic purposes. They must be in such a form as can be used forthwith by the customer without taking further troubl....

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....olved with reference to its sale. If an article is sold as an article belonging to one category it must be treated as a sale of an article of that category even though it answers the description of another category.....If therefore an article is capable of being used as a chemical and also as a colour, the answer to the question what was sold would depend upon how it was treated by the vendor. If he stocked and sold it as a chemical, it would be a sale of chemical and more so if it was bought by the vendee also as such. " Learned counsel for the petitioner also referred to a decision under the Income-tax Act reported in East India Housing and Land Development Trust Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income-tax[1961] 42 I.T.R. 49. , where it was observ....