CITY COLD STORAGE Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These Appeals, Tax Revisions, and the Writ Petitions, raise an interesting question regarding the meaning of the expressions "frozen meat" and "fresh fish" occurring in an exemption notification issued under S.10 of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963. We quote the said notification and the two relevant entries in the I Schedule thereto.

(2.) The principle of construction to be adopted in such cases is, we should think, well settled. The test should be: How is the commodity, "frozen meat" understood by the world of trade and commerce What is the meaning attributed to the expression "frozen meat" in the commercial sense As authority for the proposition that this should be the correct guideline in deciding the meaning of the term, we think it would be enough to notice the decision of a Full Bench of this Court in Krishna Iyer v. State of Kerala ( 13 STC 838), which has surveyed exhaustively the relevant decisions on the point. The question there arose, whether "green ginger" is a vegetable or not. Dealing with the question, the Full Bench observed:

(3.) In Unwin v. Hanson (1891 (2) QB 115) Lord Esher, M. R. stated: