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2019 (1) TMI 364 - SC - VAT and Sales TaxClassification of an item - Gypsum - RVAT Act - whether ‘gypsum board’ would fall within this Entry 56, and be taxed at 4%, for the relevant assessment years, or whether it would fall in the then residuary Entry 1 of Schedule V, to be taxed at 12.5%? - change of the Entry by a conscious decision of the legislature, whereby the Entry of mere ‘gypsum’ was changed to ‘gypsum in all its forms’ - original composition of gypsum - process of conversion into gypsum board. Held that:- The amended Entry 56 of Schedule IV of the RVAT, read as ‘gypsum in all its forms’, would include ‘gypsum board’ under the term ‘all its forms’. It can hardly be doubted that a meaning has to be given to the Entry made by the legislature, expanding the original Entry from ‘gypsum’ to ‘gypsum in all its forms’. If the object was to include only ‘gypsum’, then why would the Entry be changed to ‘gypsum in all its forms’? The corollary would also be as to what is meant by ‘in all its forms’, as it is not, as if mere geometrical alteration of a shape would form part of the Entry. In such a situation, the original Entry itself was comprehensive enough to have included it - In the present case, there is really no chemical change which occurs in the substance as dehydration only reduces the water content and thereafter, it is mixed with additives for the purpose of increasing bonding and other related purposes. Substantively, the character of ‘gypsum’ is not changed in the mechanical exercise of converting it into a board along with, of course, certain chemical processes of heating and mixing, to achieve an ultimate objective. Wherever an expression ‘in all its forms’ is used, it has resulted in an expanded meaning, which is a logical corollary of such an expression being added to the original Entry. To take a view to the contrary in the given situation would amount to giving no meaning to the added expression as there are really not too many possibilities on what could have been included in such an expression. Also, in terms of notification No.S.O.36.No.F.12(59)FD/Tax/2014-14 dated 14th July, 2014, the RVAT was amended to include, in Schedule V, a separate Entry under item No.19(viii) ‘gypsum board and other false ceiling material’. Thus, the legislature by a conscious decision in 2014, sought to create a separate Entry for gypsum board, which was not the case in respect of the assessment years in question - This, in our view, belies the endeavor to include gypsum board in the residuary Entry, before such specific inclusion as then there would have been no need for such an Entry. The obvious attempt is to exclude it from ‘gypsum in all its forms’ in Schedule IV of RVAT and create a separate Entry in Schedule V, whereafter it would naturally be governed by the tax rate applicable to the Entry in question. Appeal dismissed.
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