TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2001 (11) TMI 15
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....ssessee the owner of the chassis. The assessee's claim in the assessment year 1977-78 that it is entitled to investment allowance under section 32A(2)(b), as according to it, it is engaged in the business of manufacture or production of "commercial vehicles", being item No. 14 of the Ninth Schedule to the Income-tax Act, having been negatived by the Income-tax Officer as also by the appellate authority and the Tribunal, the following question has been brought before us, at the instance of the assessee: "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the decision of the Tribunal that the business carried on by the assessee in the manufacture of bus and truck bodies cannot be regarded as production of commercial vehicles falling....
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....items sets out broad categories and does not, unlike the Sales Tax Act or the Central Excise Act, particularise the items under each head. That Schedule does not contain its own dictionary defining the terms used therein. The items set out therein have to be construed literally and in a sense which would advance the legislative intent of providing the benefit of investment allowance to those who had installed machinery required for the production or manufacture of the articles or things enumerated in that Schedule. The entry "commercial vehicles", evidently refers to vehicles which are used for or capable of being used for commercial purposes. To begin with, they must be vehicles, be mobile and be capable of carrying goods or passengers a....
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.... body built thereon. When the activity of bodybuilding is separated from the activity of manufacture of chassis, such separation by itself would not be decisive on the question of eligibility of the manufacturer of the bus body for claiming the benefit of investment allowance. The body to be built on the vehicle must necessarily be built on the chassis. The chassis may belong to the customer of the body builder, who has purchased the same from a manufacturer of the chassis, or the chassis may belong to the manufacturer of the bus body, which may itself manufacture or buy the chassis and build the body thereon and then offer the vehicle for sale. In both cases, what comes out is a chassis with the body and which is a commercial vehicle. Th....
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....n is essential in order to make the vehicle usable for the purpose for which the vehicle is intended to be used as a commercial vehicle, whether it be for purposes of carrying loads or for carrying people. The separation of the activity of manufacture of chassis from that of the manufacture of bus bodies does not, therefore, disentitle either the manufacturer of the chassis or the manufacturer of the body from claiming investment allowance for the machinery installed by them for the purpose of manufacturing the chassis or the body, as the case may be. It is wholly irrelevant for the purpose of section 32A as to who the owner of the chassis is on which the body is built by the body builder, as what comes into existence as a result of the b....