P R LAKSHMI Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two sales tax cases raise the question whether the wood sold by the assessee in each case can be regarded as "firewood" and so entitled to exemption from sales tax under a Gazette notification issued by the State Government in Notification No. II(1)/Rev/386(g)/74 dated 4th March, 1974. The notification reads as under :

(2.) IT will be observed that the exemption under this notification does not define or explain what "firewood" means, what the expression includes, and what it excludes. The absence of such a definition is by no means regrettable. On the contrary, it leaves open the subject for discussion on the basis of sound common sense. As Evershed, Master of the Rolls, once observed, common sense is not entirely excluded even in tax cases.

(3.) THE Tribunal's decision is challenged in the present revisions. The learned counsel for the assessees argued the matter at some length. We listened to the arguments only to find, at the end of it all, that a Bench of this Court had repelled a similar contention put forth in a comparable case, in A.H.K. and Company v. State of Tamil Nadu. The assessee in that case sold to Gwalior Rayons certain quantities of wood according to certain specifications. This Court held that the wood in question was not firewood. The court referred to the specifications of the goods mentioned in the sale contract, which showed that the subject-matter of the sale was not firewood.