TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1967 (5) TMI 64
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....o sales tax after rejecting their objection that they were exempted under the entry referred to and their appeal before the next higher authority, who Is opposite party No. 2, has also been rejected. The relevant item in the Schedule is "vegetables, green or dried, commonly known as sabji, tarkari or sak". It is to be noted that the words "commonly known as sabji, tarkari or sak" were added to this entry by the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) (Amendment) Act, 1954 (West Bengal Act 19 of 1954). There is an exception to this item in column 2 of the Schedule as follows: "Except when sold in sealed containers." This means that in order to claim exemption under this item the article must be in its natural form and not contained in a sealed container.....
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....o be used for the table. In another case decided about the same time, the same popular test was applied: Ram Bux Chaturbhuj v. State of Rajasthan[1961] 12 S.T.C. 330. The question of interpretation of the term "vegetable" again came up before the Supreme Court in Motipur Zamindary Co. (Private) Ltd. v. The State of Bihar [1962] 13 S.T.C. 1; A.I.R. 1962 S.C. 660. In this case also the same test was applied by the Supreme Court to exclude sugarcane from the connotation of the term "vegetable" on the ground that it was a kind of grass which was used as the source of unmanufactured sugar, even though in the dictionary meaning the word "vegetable" was wide enough to cover even sugarcane as was held in the Bombay High Court in the case of State o....
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....ature itself by the 1954 amendment, by adding the words "commonly known as sabji, tarkari or sak" and it has been urged by the learned Government Pleader that none of the articles like chillies, garlic, onion or ginger would enter into the scope of the words "sabji, tarkari or sak", which are Bengali words and their meaning should be found from the meaning which Is imputed in common parlance to these words in Bengal. Reference has been made to the statement of objects and reasons of the Amending Act 19 of 1954, which says: "The object of the Act is to make certain amendments in the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, either to remove certain doubts or to stop certain loop-holes through which evasion has been found to be going on." I....
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....ords, the word "sabji" would not only include sak but also anaj and tarkari. But the word "anaj" means again sak, sabji and katcha tarkari. If this be so, it is not quite clear why the words sak and sabji were separately used by the Legislature in 1954 amendment. (c) Tarkari, according to the dictionary, means anaj and any part of a plant like its fruits and root as well as sak, which is edible by cooking. If that be so, the two tests which were laid down by the Supreme Court in the cited cases, namely, production in kitchen garden or farm and capable of being used in a table, that is, as a food-stuff, whether green or cooked, as it might be, are not displaced by the Bengali meaning of sabji or tarkari as applied to ginger. ....
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....cular article must go into the preparation of an independent item of food. I am also not unmindful of the fact that there is a separate entry No. 7, which deals with cooked food, but the item which is sought to be taxed here Is not the sale of cooked food. The word "tarkari" has got a double meaning and even in the Chalantika, referred to earlier, the secondary meaning is given as banjan, which means a cooked dish. But the meaning, which is in the mind of the Legislature, in item No. 6 Is not the cooked stage of the vegetable but the stage preparatory to cooking. If the meaning of "tarkari" be wide enough to include all parts of a plant which are edible, then naturally, it would include also roots. It may also be that nobody would think of ....