COMMERCIAL TAXES OFFICER Vs. SWASTIK GUM INDUSTRIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) DEALER-non-petitioner No. 1, at the relevant time, carried on business of gowar gum and gowar churi. The Assistant Commercial Taxes Officer, Ward 'C', Pali (assessing authority), by his assessment order dated 22nd April, 1972, for the period 22nd October, 1968, to 30th October, 1970, charged tax on the sale of gowar churi at the rate of 2 per cent. He did not accept the claim of the dealer that gowar churi was exempt from payment of tax under item No. 9 of the Schedule to the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954 (Act No. 29 of 1954) (for short "the Act"). The dealer (assessee) filed appeal and the Deputy Commissioner (Appeals), Commercial Taxes, Jodhpur, by his order dated 9th January, 1974, allowed the appeal and held that gowar churi being cattle feed and being item different from gowar, falls under entry 9 of the Schedule and is, therefore, exempt from tax. The assessing authority filed a revision before the Board of Revenue, Ajmer ("the Board" herein). The Division Bench of the Board, by its order dated 16th February, 1979, rejected the revision holding that gowar churi is fodder and as such exempt from the payment of tax according to entry 9 of the Schedule. We may read the material part of the order of the Board dated 16th February, 1979 : "We are of the opinion that gowar churi is used mostly for cattle feed purposes. Gowar has perhaps been deleted from the totally exempted items of fodder from the payment of tax under section 4(1) of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act as it is also used as raw material for preparation of gum which is a commercial item. The intention of the legislature for exempting pulses and fodder is to give relief to the consumers and agriculturists. As has been certified by the different firms and is well-known, gowar churi cannot be used for any other purposes and as has been held in the above-referred two cases the best test for considering any item as fodder is the extensive use to which that commodity is put to."

(2.) THE Commercial Taxes Offer (Revisions), Ajmer, filed an application under section 15(1) of the referring the question of law arising out of the order dated 16th February, 1979, of the Board. As that application was not disposed of within the period of 180 days from the date of the application, the petitioners have filed the application under section 15(3A) of the Act for a direction to the Board to refer the following question of law to this Court for decision : "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case involving an assessee who runs gum industry and has no connection with cattle, the Board was right in holding that gowar churi is cattle feed and exempt from tax under entry No. 9 of the Schedule to the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954 ?"

(3.) THE question that cropped up in Delhi Cloth and General Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Rajasthan [1980] 46 STC 256 (SC) before the Supreme Court was whether the word "fabric" includes tyre cord fabric, for the purpose of exemption from tax under the Act. His Lordship, Pathak, J., speaking for the court, made the following weighty observations : "In determining the meaning or connotation of words and expressions describing an article or commodity the turnover of which is taxed in a sales tax enactment, if there is one principle fairly well-settled, it is that the words or expressions must be construed in the sense in which they are understood in the trade, by the dealer and the consumer. It is they who are concerned with it, and it is the sense in which they understand it that constitutes the definitive index of the legislative intention when the statute was enacted."