ISWARDAS DWARKADAS Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Member, Additional Sales Tax Tribunal, Orissa, has referred this case and the following two questions have been sent for opinion of the court at the instance of the assessee :

(2.) THE assessee is a dealer in mill-made and handloom cloth, hosiery goods, satranjis, etc. In the course of assessment, a question arose as to whether satranji would be tax-free article or being carpet would be taxed as luxury goods. The Member, Additional Sales Tax Tribunal, ultimately in second appeal by the assessee, came to hold that satranji, asani and duree were all cotton fabrics and did not belong to the category of carpet as defined in entry serial No. 25. Yet, he felt bound by a Bench decision of this Court in the case of State of Orissa v. Modi Stores, Cuttack [1969] 24 STC 255 and observed :

(3.) IT is a proposition of law beyond dispute now that the words like "carpets" and "satranji" have to be understood in their popular sense or their commercial sense unless there be a statutory definition. In the popular sense, as indicated in the New Oxford Illustrated Dictionary,"carpet" would mean :