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2000 (10) TMI 943

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..... 14, 1989 wherein livestock is one of the items exempted, in exercise of powers conferred on the Governor by section 9(1) of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957 (for short, "the Act"). Following the observations of the Supreme Court in Royal Hatcheries Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Andhra Pradesh [1994] 92 STC 239, the Tribunal held that the exemption was available to the assessees in respect of the relevant assessment years, viz., 1988-89 to 1992-93. It is against this decision of the Tribunal, the State has preferred these revision cases. 3.. It may be stated that with effect from August 27, 1992, by virtue of the notification issued by the Government under section 9(1) of the Act, one-day-old chicks were specifically exempted from th .....

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..... of the words employed in clause (xxvi) of sub-rule (2) of rule 5 of the Rules and held that only domestic animals of the type mentioned therein, i.e., quadrupeds alone are encompassed within the scope of clause. To hold otherwise, the Supreme Court pointed out, would be to depart from and ignore the ordinary popular connotation of the words "domestic animals" besides doing violence to the spirit and structure of the clause. The Supreme Court then observed that if "birds" are also included in the clause, the very purpose of giving illustrations disappears and the reference to the particular animals in the clause would become superfluous. On this reasoning, the Supreme Court held that one-day-old chicks or for that matter "animals", which ar .....

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..... ld in Peterborough Royal Foxhound Show Society v. Commissioner of Inland Revenue 20 Tax Cases 249, the word "livestock" takes in "animals" of any description, but the rule-making authority chose to limit the meaning of "live-stock" in the said clause only to domestic animals mentioned therein. 8.. The observations in paragraph 7 of the judgment also deserve notice, which reads as follows: "Besides Peterborough Royal Foxhound Show Society v. Commissioner of Inland Revenue 20 Tax Cases 249, Mr. Sorabjee brought to our notice the definition of 'livestock' in the Livestock Importation Act, 1898, the notification dated July 20, 1960, issued by the Central Government under the said Act, the text book 'Livestock Breeding in India' by D. Sundare .....

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..... under taxation statutes which proceed on the basis that poultry is livestock. We may refer to few of them. 11.. In the dictionaries, the following meanings of "livestock" are given: The Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines "livestock" as under: "Domesticated animals, especially sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry kept for the production of meat, milk, wool, etc., or for breeding purposes". Black's Agricultural Dictionary, II Edition, defines "livestock" to mean "domesticated animals such as cattle, horses, pigs, poultry, sheep, etc." Here italicised. In Venkataramaiya's Law Lexicon with Legal maxims II Edition refers to the publication titled Legislative Drafting & Forms by Six Alison Russel, page 208 "livestock" is defined as under: .....

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..... ing of which is regulated by man." In the "Words and Phrases Legally Defined", by Saundes 'livestock' is defined as "cattle, sheep, goats, swine, horses, or poultry and for the purposes of this definition 'cattle means bulls, cows, oxen, heifers or calves, 'horses' includes asses and mules, and 'poultry' means domestic fowls, turkeys, geese or ducks". 13.. In Wardhough (A.F.) Ltd. v. Mace (1952) 2 All ER 28, Lord Goddard defined "livestock" as under: "Livestock generally means live animals. If the live and dead stock on a farm are advertised for sale, everybody knows what that means. The dead stock are implements; the livestock are the animals on the farm and I should think that in the great majority of cases at any rate it would include .....

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..... icatory provision in a taxing statute in the following words: "The marginal note to section 8 is "licensing and exemption of agents" and it is argued that the exemption granted in section 8 would be meaningless if agents were not included in the category of 'dealers' as defined in section 2(b) and made chargeable under section 3. From the exemption provided for by section 8 a positive provision levying a charge is, in effect, sought to be inferred or implied. In construing a taxing enactment very little weight attaches to the argument that because a specific exemption from tax is found in it, other cases not specifically exempted must be deemed to have been charged to tax. Such exemptions are often introduced under the influence of excessi .....

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