TMI Blog1972 (4) TMI 78X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 391/X-1012/1962 dated 1st July, 1962, treating calcium carbide as a chemical. The assessee went up in appeal claiming that calcium carbide is not a chemical within the meaning of that notification and that its turnover should have been assessed to tax at the rate of 2 per cent. as an unclassified item. The Assistant Commissioner (Judicial), who heard the appeal, came to the conclusion that when calcium carbide is brought into contact with water, it reacts to it and emits acetylene. It was therefore a chemical within the meaning of the notification. Its turnover had therefore been rightly assessed to tax at the rate of 7 per cent. The assessee then filed an application in revision before the revising authority contending that calcium carbi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... preme Court observed: "But it is now well-settled that while interpreting items in statutes like the Sales Tax Acts, resort should be had not to the scientific or the technical meaning of such terms but to their popular meaning or the meaning attached to them by those dealing in them, that is to say, to their commercial sense." Similarly in Ramavatar Budhaiprasad v. Assistant Sales Tax Officer[1961] 12 S.T.C. 286 (S.C.). , the Supreme Court, while considering whether betel leaves were vegetables within the meaning of that expression in the Schedule to the C.P. and Berar Sales Tax Act, 1947, held that the expression "vegetables" ".......must be construed not in any technical sense nor from the botanical point of view but as understood in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... be called a chemical. In this connection at page 91 it was observed as follows: "A dealer selling chemicals offers them for sale because he considers them saleable. They are saleable because they can be the subject of use or consumption or profit to a prospective buyer, and that depends upon their properties. A commodity is offered for sale as a chemical because of its chemical properties. Therefore, the entry 'chemicals of all kinds' refers to those commodities which because of their chemical properties prompt a dealer to offer them for sale and induce a purchaser to buy them." Before the sales tax authorities it was the assessee's own case that calcium carbide is used by welders who put it in a cylinder containing water. Due to moist ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pare part. We are unable to accept this argument. We are not convinced that the classification list in a telephone directory can be used in support of the argument advanced by the learned counsel. This list has not been drawn up with the object of classifying goods as understood by the trade. Its object is to generally classify trades and professions and then mention the names and telephone numbers of the traders along with a brief description of the articles and types of things in which they trade. A class of goods can be dealt with by different traders belonging to different classes. In the circumstances, merely because a trader under the head welding machines and spare parts is shown to be dealing in calcium carbide it does not mean that ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n urged that calcium carbide is in fact used by welders for creating heat and it is therefore fuel. The trade also understands it as such. We are unable to accept this submission. As mentioned above, it is clear to the trade that calcium carbide is a substance which is used for producing acetylene gas by subjecting it to a chemical reaction with water. What is used as a fuel by the welders is not calcium carbide but a mixture of oxygen and acetylene gas. It is not possible to classify either calcium carbide or water, the two substances which chemically react to produce acetylene gas, as fuel. Accordingly, we answer the question referred to us in favour of the Commissioner of Sales Tax as follows: Calcium carbide is taxable as chemical u ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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