TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1972 (4) TMI 78
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....r to tax amounting to Rs. 4,460.47 by applying the rate of 7 per cent. as provided in Notification No. ST. 3391/X-1012/1962 dated 1st July, 1962, treating calcium carbide as a chemical. The assessee went up in appeal claiming that calcium carbide is not a chemical within the meaning of that notification and that its turnover should have been assessed to tax at the rate of 2 per cent. as an unclassified item. The Assistant Commissioner (Judicial), who heard the appeal, came to the conclusion that when calcium carbide is brought into contact with water, it reacts to it and emits acetylene. It was therefore a chemical within the meaning of the notification. Its turnover had therefore been rightly assessed to tax at the rate of 7 per cent. T....
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.... In Commissioner of Sales Tax, M.P. v. Messrs. Jaswant Singh Charan Singh[1967] 19 S.T.C. 469 (S.C.). , the Supreme Court observed: "But it is now well-settled that while interpreting items in statutes like the Sales Tax Acts, resort should be had not to the scientific or the technical meaning of such terms but to their popular meaning or the meaning attached to them by those dealing in them, that is to say, to their commercial sense." Similarly in Ramavatar Budhaiprasad v. Assistant Sales Tax Officer[1961] 12 S.T.C. 286 (S.C.). , the Supreme Court, while considering whether betel leaves were vegetables within the meaning of that expression in the Schedule to the C.P. and Berar Sales Tax Act, 1947, held that the expression "vegetab....
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....rks[1970] 25 S.T.C. 85 (F.B.)., a Full Bench of this court had an occasion to consider whether sodium silicate could be called a chemical. In this connection at page 91 it was observed as follows: "A dealer selling chemicals offers them for sale because he considers them saleable. They are saleable because they can be the subject of use or consumption or profit to a prospective buyer, and that depends upon their properties. A commodity is offered for sale as a chemical because of its chemical properties. Therefore, the entry 'chemicals of all kinds' refers to those commodities which because of their chemical properties prompt a dealer to offer them for sale and induce a purchaser to buy them." Before the sales tax authorities it was t....
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....does not consider calcium carbide to be a chemical. It, on the other hand, treats it as welding machine accessory and spare part. We are unable to accept this argument. We are not convinced that the classification list in a telephone directory can be used in support of the argument advanced by the learned counsel. This list has not been drawn up with the object of classifying goods as understood by the trade. Its object is to generally classify trades and professions and then mention the names and telephone numbers of the traders along with a brief description of the articles and types of things in which they trade. A class of goods can be dealt with by different traders belonging to different classes. In the circumstances, merely because a....