TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1987 (4) TMI 458
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....l goods. Aggrieved by those orders these writ petitions were filed. "Taxes on the sale or purchase of goods other than newspapers, subject to the provisions of entry 92-A of List I" is the entry No. 54 in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India. The word "goods" is defined in clause (12) of article 366: "'goods' includes all materials, commodities and articles." The thrust of the argument advanced on behalf of the petitioners was that the State Legislature was not competent to make law levying tax on the sale or purchase of animate objects, namely, live-stock. The basis of this argument was that the materials, commodities and articles which constitute goods as defined in clause (12) of article 366 of the Constitution of India include only the inanimate objects but not the live-stock. In the New Webster's Encyclopaedic Dictionary (1980 edition) the meaning of the term "commodity" is given as: "What is useful; specifically, an article of merchandise; anything movable that is bought and sold, as goods, wares, produce of land and manufacture." The Oxford English Dictionary describes "commodity" as: "A thing of use or advantage to mankind; useful products, mat....
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....and that each general word should be held to extend to all ancillary or subsidiary matters which can fairly and reasonably be said to be comprehended in it. I deprecate any attempt to enumerate in advance all the matters which are to be included under any of the more general descriptions; it will be sufficient and much wiser to determine each case as and when it comes before this court." That observation was quoted with approval by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Banarasi Dass v. Wealth-tax Officer AIR 1965 SC 1387. In Commissioner of Sales Tax v. Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board [1970] 25 STC 188 (SC) interpreting the word "goods" occurring in the C.P. and Berar Sales Tax Act, 1947, and the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1958, the Supreme Court held that electric energy was goods. In coming to that conclusion the learned judges observed at page 194: "The term 'movable property' when considered with reference to 'goods' as defined for the purposes of sales tax cannot be taken in a narrow sense and merely because electric energy is not tangible or cannot be moved or touched like, for instance, a piece of wood or a book it cannot cease to be movable property w....
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....not take within their ambit the expression 'live-stock'. The expression 'livestock' though constitute movable property still it cannot be considered to be goods as defined by the Act and the expression 'goods' do not include, according to the learned counsel, animate chattel which no doubt is considered as movable property. No authority was cited by the learned counsel in support of their contention that live-stock are not movable property as defined in the General Clauses Act or goods within the meaning of the expression as defined in the Act. The expression 'movable property' occurring in the Act shall have to be understood in the light of the meaning given to the expression movable property' in section 3(19) of the Andhra Pradesh General Clauses Act, 1891. The expression 'movable property' is defined in the General Clauses Act as meaning property of every description except immovable property. I am not able to find any juridical basis for the proposition that animate objects such as live-stock could not come within the definition of movable property. The expression 'goods', as has already been noticed, is defined by the Act to mean all kinds of movable property. 'All kinds of mo....
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....ted items are not intended to be exhaustive and the word "etc." suggests that chicks must be construed ejusdem generis with the words oxen, bulls, cows, buffaloes, goats, sheep, horses, etc. On the other hand the learned Government Pleader has urged that the rule of ejusdem generis is the one to be applied with caution and in any case the chicks cannot be considered as forming part of the class or category of the enumerated domestic animals, namely, oxen, bulls, cows, buffaloes, goats, sheep, horses, etc. It is no doubt true that the Supreme Court quoted with approval the following passage from Craies on Statute Law (7th edition, page 181) in Mangalore Electric Supply Co. Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income-tax, West Bengal AIR 1978 SC 1272: "The ejusdem generis rule is one to be applied with caution and not pushed too far, as in the case of many decisions, which treat it as automatically applicable, and not as being, what it is, a mere presumption, in the absence of other indications of the intention of the legislature. The modern tendency of the law, it was said, is 'to attenuate the application of the rule of ejusdem generis'. To invoke the application of the ejusdem generis rule th....