TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1982 (11) TMI 153
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....om milk. In the case of Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in Mysore, Bangalore v. Samant Brothers [1962] 13 STC 485, a Division Bench of the Mysore High Court held as follows: "In my opinion, it is not correct to say that if a person buys butter and sells the ghee produced from it, what is sold by him is what he purchased. The words 'ghee' and 'butter' as ordinarily understood by those who use them are different substances and in commercial usage they are regarded as different classes of goods. The purposes for which the one is used are not the same as the purposes for which the other is employed. If, therefore, what the assessee purchased was butter and what he sold was ghee, what he sold was not the same as what he purchased, notwithstanding the fact that what he sold was what he produced by merely melting what he purchased." In that case, the interpretation of section 10 of the Bombay Sales Tax Act was involved. The goods were described as "milk products including butter, ghee, chhena and khoa (except sweetmeats and excepting butter-milk and curds declared as tax-free under entry 4 of Schedule A)" and thereafter the rate of tax was prescribed. The assessee purchased butter ....
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....ucts sold in sealed containers, (2) sweetmeats, (3) ghee and (4) butter and cream." The net result was that the butter and cream were made liable to sales tax at one point at 1 per cent. Another modification was made in the list of exemption by Notification No. ST-II-6625/X-1012-1972 dated 1st December, 1973, and now entry 10 reads as follows: "Milk and milk products but excluding (1) products sold in sealed containers, (2) sweetmeats, (3) ghee and (4) butter, cream and cheese." Thus, cheese also became liable to sales tax. Thereafter came the notification which we have to consider now. The notifications referred to above indicate that over the course of time first ghee, then butter and cream and then cheese were made liable to tax. Under the impugned notification, the turnover of first purchase of goods mentioned in the list was made liable to tax under clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 3-D of the Act at the rate mentioned against each. In the description of the goods, we find ghee including butter, cheese and cream other than butter, cheese or cream sold in sealed or tinned containers and the rate of tax prescribed is 3 per cent. The first purchase of butter, t....
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.... dated 1st December, 1973, and 30th May, 1975, issued under the U.P. Sales Tax Act. The relevant entry runs as follows: "1. All kinds of minerals, ores, metals, and alloys including sheets and circles used in the manufacture of brasswares and scraps containing only any of the metals, copper, tin, zinc, or nickel except those included in any other notification issued under the Act." The Supreme Court held that: "But here the expression 'including' does not enlarge the meaning of the word 'metal' and must be understood in a conjunctive sense, as a substitute for 'and'. This is the reasonable and proper construction having regard to the scheme followed in the framing of those notifications." The scheme followed in reference to the taxability of milk products to the extent relevant has been mentioned earlier. Thus, the decision of the Supreme Court is an authority for the proposition that while interpreting a particular notification, the scheme of taxation followed earlier may be taken into consideration. If we read the word "including" in the notification as "and", no difficulty in interpreting the notification will arise. The description of the goods would, thus, run as f....
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.... bags, cartons, cards and blank registers, note-books, exercise books, envelopes, labels, letter pads, writing tablets and flat files made out of paper." The question for consideration before the court was whether the assessee was liable to special sales tax on the sale of blank registers, exercise books, letter-pads, labels, loose printed forms, envelopes, cards and flat files, which it had prepared from the papers purchased by it from the dealer; in other words, whether these articles were different within the meaning of the notification attracting the incidence of taxation at the point of sale by the manufacturer, namely, the assessee. The High Court held that in view of the fact that the paper included all types of paper mentioned therein, the assessee was not liable to pay sales tax. Here the word "include" has been really read as "means and includes" and I am in respectful agreement with the view of the Patna High Court as far as the interpretation of the notification is concerned but I do not find it possible to accept the argument of the learned counsel for the assessee that the entry in the notification under consideration should be read in the like manner. The ca....