RAMESHWAR JUTE MILLS LIMITED Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In these two writ petitions identical question is involved and, therefore, they have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common order. In C.W.J.C. No. 1196 of 1986 the year in question is 1978-79 while in C.W.J.C. No. 1075 of 1986 the year in question is 1977-78. In both the years the respondent-Market Committee has imposed market fee on the sale of the item 'Mesta' treating it to be the same as 'Jute.'

(2.) The submission urged on behalf of the petitioner is that 'Jute' and 'Mesta' are two different items and Mesta is neither a derivative nor processed form of jute. These two items are botanically different and so known in the commercial world by persons dealing with these items.On the other hand, the contention of the respondents is that in the Jute (Licensing and Control Order) 1961 issued under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, 'raw jute' has been defined as fibre of jute as also known as pat, kosta, nalita, bimli or mesta and, therefore, jute must include mesta. This is the reasoning which has found favour with the revisional authority also, as is apparent from its order dated 24-8-1985 (Annexure-7) dismissing the revision petitions filed by the petitioner.

(3.) At the very threshold counsel for the petitioner submitted that the approach of the respondents is errneous in law. It is dangerous in the matter of construction to adopt a definition of a commodity given in a different statute for a different purpose. The licensing order to which reference has been made in the revisional order was meant for licensing jute industry, and for that purpose jute was understood to include mesta. The purpose under the Market Act is not to licence any industry but to impose market fee on the agricultural produce enumerated in the Schedule to the Act, as it stood in the relevant years. Counsel for the petitioner places reliance upon a passage appearing in (1985) 1 SCC 51 : (AIR 1985 SC 76); (M/s. M.S.C.O. Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India). The Supreme Court held (at p. 78 of AIR) :"The expression 'industry' has many meanings. It means 'skill,' 'ingenuity,' 'desterity,' 'diligence,' 'systematic work or labour,' 'habitual employment in the productive arts,' 'manufacturing establishment' etc. But while construing a word which occurs in a statute or a statutory instrument in the absence of any definition in that very document it must be given the same meaning which it receives in ordinary parlance or understood in the sense in which people conversant with the subject-matter of the statute or statutory instrument understand it. It is hazardous to interpret a word in accordance with its definition in another statute or statutory instrument and more so when such statute or statutory instrument is not dealing with any cognate subject. Craies on Statute Laws (Sixth Edn.) says thus at page 164 :In construing a word in an Act caution is necessary in adopting the meaning ascribed to the word in other Acts." It would be a new terror in the construction of Acts of Parliament if we were required to limit a word to an unnatural sense because in some Act which is not incorporated or referred to such an interpretation is given to it for the purposes of that Act alone (Macbeth and Co. v. Chislett) (1910 AC 220)."To the same effect are the observations of the Supreme Court in AIR 1981 SC 951 (Union of India v. R. C. Jain) wherein it was observed that it is not a sound rule of interpretation to seek the meaning of words used in an Act, in the definition clause of other statutes. The definition of an expression in one Act must not be imported into another. We, therefore, entertain no doubt that the reasoning adopted by the revisional authority and reiterated before us by counsel for the respondents, that jute must include Mesta because it is so defined under a licensing order issued by the Central Government in connection with the licensing of jute industry under the Essential Commodities Act, cannot be sustained.