1978 (9) TMI 162

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....ed by the dealer from the forest department as also by local purchase. The fuel wood purchased by the dealer consisted of wood of various types of trees. The wood purchased was supplied to the paper mills by the assessee in pieces of 10 cm. to 20 cm. in diameter, with the further condition that no piece was to weigh more than 100 kg. The price payable to dealer was at the rate of Rs. 5 per quintal. The mills after purchasing the wood, which was called kokat in the local area, used it for purposes of manufacturing paper. The Sales Tax Officer taking the view that the wood sold by the assessee was pulp wood taxed it as an unclassified commodity. The assessee appealed. The appellate authority found that most of the wood sold by the assessee....

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.... in which it has to be put in the relevant taxing notification. In Commissioner of Sales Tax, U.P. v. Narain Das Barey Lal[1978] 42 S.T.C. 470., the question arose as to whether rice bran was cattle fodder. The assessee in that case had sold rice bran to mills which extracted oil out of it. It was held that as rice bran was normally used as cattle fodder, its special use did not take it out of the category of cattle fodder. In the case of Engineering Traders, Begum Bridge Road, Meerut v. State of Uttar Pradesh[1973] 31 S.T.C. 456 (F.B.); 1973 U.P.T.C. 91., the question was as to whether pumping sets sold by the assessee fell within the category of agricultural machines. It was urged on behalf of the State that as pumping sets could be used ....

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....character as firewood. It is the common user of an article and not its special use that determines the category in which a particular commodity is to be classified under the notification. Let us suppose for an instance that the mills which were purchasing kokat from the assessee closed down. In that event the kokat would be sold to consumers for use as firewood. In such a situation, it will not be possible for the department to contend that kokat was not firewood. The fortuitous event of the factory being located in the vicinity, which used kokat as raw material for producing paper, cannot be taken as a good ground for classifying it differently from the category of firewood. Sri V.D. Singh, the learned standing counsel, placed great rel....