TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1982 (2) TMI 279
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....ty to its members contained a printed matter thereon to the effect that they contained certified seeds, Hybrid-4, Shanker-4, District Baroda, 1975. They further contained the year of the preparation and a statement that there was a coat given of a poisonous chemical, etc., for the benefit of its purchasing members. The purchasing members had purchased those cloth bags for the purpose of selling hybrid agricultural seeds therein. While assessing the applicant to tax in respect of the above period of account under the said Act, the learned Sales Tax Officer treated the sale of cloth bags as covered by entry 51 of Schedule I to the said Act, implying thereby that the sales of cloth bags were exempt from sales tax. The Sales Tax Officer, therefore, did not levy any tax on those sales. The order of the Sales Tax Officer is to be found at annexure 3 to the statement of the case. This is an undisputed fact, namely, that the Sales Tax Officer treated the sale of cloth bags as covered by entry 51 of Schedule I to the said Act. The learned Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax, however, took a different view of the matter and exercised his suo motu powers under section 67 of the s....
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.... be of the nature of ready-made garments, that is to say, articles which are normally meant for use for a domestic or a personal or a private purpose and not for a commercial purpose and since the cloth bags were not meant for such domestic or personal use but were meant for commercial use, they would not fall within entry 51 of Schedule I to the said Act and were therefore not exempt from tax. In giving this interpretation to entry 51 of Schedule I to the said Act, it applied the principle of ejusdem generis. The Tribunal relied upon the two decisions, New City Printing Press v. State of Gujarat in Appeal No. 4 of 1974, and Vijay Buff Corporation v. State of Gujarat in Appeal No. 3 of 1966, in order to fortify the conclusion which it had reached for interpreting entry 51 of Schedule I to the said Act. Mr. S.L. Modi, the learned Advocate for the applicant-assessee, had appeared before the Tribunal also and he submitted before the Tribunal that it was a cardinal canon of construction of a statute that the words in the statute must be given their literal, grammatical and natural sense and that the other rules of interpretation are required to be considered only in cases when it is no....
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.... to be read as comprehending only things of the same kind as those designed by them, unless, of course, there be something to show that a wider sense was intended as, for instance, a proviso specifically excepting certain classes clearly not with the suggested genus." The passage from Maxwell is reproduced here as taken by the Tribunal in its judgment. We have reproduced this passage here because we are of the view, as we shall show later, that the passage from Maxwell does not help the interpretation put on by the Tribunal. The Tribunal further observed that "this is a case where the words articles prepared from any textile or handloom fabrics are general words which are preceded by special or particular words 'ready-made garments' and, therefore, those subsequent words of general import would take their colour or meaning from the preceding special or restrictive words". The Tribunal further observed in its judgment that on account of the proximity of the said special words in entry 51 of Schedule I to the said Act, it was justified in ignoring the omission of the word "other" and in applying the principle of ejusdem generis while interpreting the above entry. In the res....
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....for applying the principle of ejusdem generis. Even otherwise, we agree that the submissions made before us by Mr. Modi that in the relevant entry the words which are used are clear and unambigous and if we give the literal, grammatical and natural interpretation to the entry, there is no scope for giving an artificially restricted meaning to the word "articles". In other words, if we were to interpret the word "articles" as partaking of the nature of ready-made garments, we would be required to read the relevant entry as under: "Ready-made garments and such other articles as necessary for the use of readymade garments........" We find it impossible to add words in the concerned entry, and in our opinion, to do so would mean a flagrant violation of the canons of interpretation of a statute. With respect, the Tribunal had no basis whatever to interpret the concerned entry by applying the rule of ejusdem generis which has the result of giving a new meaning and import to the words used therein. It is to be pertinently noticed while closely perusing the concerned entry that after the use of the generic word "articles", the legislature had excluded from the meaning of the term "ar....