TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1973 (1) TMI 86
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....o the refund of the tax already paid. Hence this and other connected petitions under article 226 of the Constitution. Section 3-D of the U.P. Sales Tax Act is the charging section under which purchase tax is levied on the turnover of first purchases of such commodities and at such rate not exceeding 2 paise per rupee in respect of the foodgrains, including cereals and pulses, and five paise per rupee in the case of other goods and with effect from such date, as may from time to time be notified by the State Government. The Governor of Uttar Pradesh issued an Ordinance, Uttar Pradesh Taxation Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 1971 (U.P. Ordinance No. 19 of 1971). It came into force on 15th November, 1971. Section 3 of the Ordinance has amended section 3-D of the U.P. Sales Tax Act. The amendment so far as material for our purpose is as under "In sub-section (I)(x) for the opening paragraph, the following paragraph shall be substituted, namely: 'except as provided in sub-section (2), there shall be levied and paid, for each assessment year or part thereof, a tax on the turnover, to be determined in the prescribed manner,- (a) of purchases of such foodgrains (including cereals and pulses....
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....in respect of other goods. The notification of 15th November, 1971, reproduced above, purports to impose a tax at the rate of 1 per cent. at all points of purchases in respect of foodgrains [clause (ii)] while under clause (iii) the tax is levied on the turnover of first purchases of goods mentioned in List II. The contention put forward on behalf of the petitioners is that on a correct reading of the impugned notification paddy has not been subjected to tax. It will be noticed that by the impugned notification the Government has sought to achieve three things. By clause (i) it has rescinded all previous notifications relating to foodgrains and seven other commodities including paddy as mentioned in List I; by clause (ii) it has levied tax on the turnover of purchases of foodgrains at the rate of 1 per cent. at all points of purchases and under clause (iii) it has levied tax at different rates on the first purchases of goods as mentioned in List II. The argument is that the Government having rescinded all previous notifications in respect of foodgrains including paddy (as per List I), paddy has not been named for tax either under clause (ii) or clause (iii) and, as such, no tax ca....
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...., entry at serial No. 1 in the table under the heading "name of goods", the following words and commas were added: "but excluding sawan, kodon, mandua, kisar (or kisari or latri), kisar dal, kakun, manjhari (or ankri), juar, kutu and ramdana." Next comes the Notification No. ST-315/X-900(16-A)-1964 dated 16th February, 1965. This again purports to amend the aforesaid notification dated 1st October, 1964. The amendment reads: "In the table appended to the aforesaid notification dated October 1, 1964, in the entry at serial No. 1, under the heading 'name of goods', for the words and full stop 'kutu and ramdana.' the words, a comma and full stop 'kutu, ramdana and paddy.' shall be substituted." Thus, the final entry, as amended by the aforesaid two notifications, came to read: "Foodgrains, including cereals and pulses but excluding sawan, kodon, mandua, kisar (or kisari or latri), kisari dal, kakun, manjhari (or ankri), juar, kutu, ramdana and paddy." This entry corresponds exactly to item No. 1 in List I relating to foodgrains. So, the result was that the entry relating to foodgrains, excluding paddy, as enumerated above, stood rescinded. Then we have Notification No. ST-315-A/X-....
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....tax. It does not authorise the State Government to rescind any notification. The power to rescind a notification is to be found under section 21 of the U.P. General Clauses Act. Thus, the object to be achieved by the notification was to levy purchase tax under clauses (ii) and (iii) and to rescind all previous notifications whether relating to purchase tax or sales tax under section 21 of the General Clauses Act. Reverting now to the main contention, what has to be seen is as to whether paddy is a foodgrain or not. Foodgrain is a comprehensive term, which includes all grains which are used as food by human beings. Paddy, as such, no doubt, is not fit for human consumption, but encased inside it is rice, which is taken out from paddy by a process called husking or hulling. In other words, paddy is nothing but unhusked rice. In Webster's New International Dictionary, the meaning of paddy is "in commerce, unmilled or rough rice, whether growing or cut, also, rice in general". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, paddy means "the rice in the straw or (in commerce) in the husk". In Encyclopaedia Britannica, we find mentioned in the heading "preparation of rice": "The kernel of r....