TMI Blog1986 (5) TMI 257X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tax liability (vide item No. 23 in Schedule I of Notification S.R.O. No. 342/63). 2.. For the assessment year 1975-76 the Sales Tax Officer, III Circle, Quilon, upheld the petitioner's claim for exemption of turnover for the sale of cuttlefish. But subsequently the same officer initiated proceedings under section 19 of the Act to redetermine the turnover of the petitioner, since he felt that the exemption was wrongly granted. As per his order dated 28th February, 1980, the Sales Tax Officer assessed the petitioner to sales tax for the turnover of the sale of cuttlefish, since the officer took the view that cuttlefish is not fish. The order was confirmed by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner of Agricultural Incometax and Sales Tax, Qu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... or the purpose of ascertaining the true import of the items of articles catalogued in taxing statutes. Such items, according to the learned counsel, should be understood only by the popular connotation or in commercial sense. In support of the above contention the learned counsel cited the Full Bench decision of the Kerala High Court in Krishna Iyer v. State of Kerala [1962] 13 STC 838. The word "vegetables" in item No. 27 of Schedule I to the General Sales Tax Act, 1125, was the subject-matter of discussion in the said decision. Their Lordships stated that: "It is not the dictionary meaning of a term that will invariably prevail in the construction of a statute. The rule of interpretation in such cases is that particular words used by th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y, who seeks to attach a particular meaning to the term involved, to give evidence in support of it. In the absence of such evidence, the course open to the court is to resort to dictionaries and lexicons. We are fortified in this by the observation of a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court in Commissioner of Sales Tax v. Tejco Industries [1976] 38 STC 93. "The meaning of the terms describing goods in the entries in the Schedules to the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959, prescribing rates at which commercial articles have to be taxed has to be gathered from the trade parlance or the common parlance in trade. The question as to what is the meaning given to a term used in an entry in common parlance is a question of fact to be determined on evide ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ing in water. 9.. While dealing with cuttlefish the "World Book Encyclopaedia" (same edition Vol. IV at page 959) describes it as "a mollusk (soft boneless animal) in the same class as the squid". In "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (Vol. 6-page 928) "cuttlefish" is described as "a name given to a large group of marine cephalopod mollusks related to the octopuses and squids". (Mollusk is a soft bodied animal, without bones. Oysters, slugs and snails are some of the varieties of mollusks.) 10.. Thus the poignant feature of "cuttlefish" is that it is a non-vertebrate. Prawns and lobsters are also non-vertebrates. Even the Act does not include prawns and lobsters in the category of fish, as they have been made taxable items. There is no dispute ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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