TMI Blog1991 (8) TMI 3X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... The judgment of the High Court of Delhi is challenged by the assessee in this appeal. The assessee is a private limited company running a cold storage. The year of assessment is 1973-74. An "industrial company" as defined in section 2(7)(c) of the Finance Act, 1973, for the purposes of the First Schedule of that Act was entitled to certain concessions in the matter of taxation. The appellant laid claim to such benefits by contending that it came within the meaning of "industrial company". The question that was referred by the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal to the High Court was : "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the assessee-company running a cold storage could be held to be an industrial company for purposes o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ocessing and to find the true meaning of the word "processing". The word "processing" has not been defined in the Income-tax Act. The word "process" has various meanings, some wider than others. Lord Guthrie, in Kilmarnock Equitable Co-operative Society Ltd. v. IRC [1966] 42 TC 675 (C Sess) at page 681, observed that the word "does not have the widest significance of 'anything done to the goods or materials'." The Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court looked for the meaning in the Oxford Dictionary, Webster's New International Dictionary, Words and Phrases Legally Defined, Volume 4, and in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume 9. The High Court was impressed by the statement in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume 9, pp. 543, 545, where it was s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Farrukhabad Cold Storage P. Ltd. [1977] 107 ITR 816. The Calcutta High Court's view directly supports the appellant's stand. In the impugned judgment reported in Delhi Cold Storage (P.) Ltd. v. CIT [1985] 156 ITR 97, after dealing with the cases of the Calcutta and Allahabad High Courts, reference was made to the decision of this court in Chowgule and Co. P. Ltd. v. Union of India [1981] 47 STC 124 to find out the true meaning of the two words "manufacture" and "processing". After discussing some precedents, this court observed thus (at p. 131): "What is necessary in order to characterise an operation as 'processing' is that the commodity must, as a result of the operation, experience some change. Here, in the present case, diverse qua ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... spective chemical and physical compositions." The meaning given to the word "processing" and the test laid down by the three-judge Bench of this court to find out whether the operation amounts to processing runs counter to the conclusions reached by the Allahabad and Calcutta High Courts. As we have already pointed out, the two direct decisions on the point are the cases from Allahabad and Calcutta. The other cases that have been cited in the Calcutta judgment or at the Bar are cases not relating to the meaning or ambit of the relevant expression in the definition of section 2 (7) (c) of the Finance Act, 1973: We have already noted that processing is a term of wide amplitude and has various aspects and meanings. In common parlance, "p ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
