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TMI Blog1967 (7) TMI 111X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tion that coconuts are not oil-seeds, but came to the conclusion that they are and incidentally also held that coconuts are not vegetables and therefore not exempt from tax. What was pressed before us is whether the finding of the Tribunal that coconuts are oil-seeds is correct and justified. No other point was seriously pressed or argued. The ordinary meaning of the word "seed" is "that which is sown ". Its botanical expansion, according to the Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary is, a multicellular structure by which flowering plants reproduce. It is an accepted canon of law that in interpreting words of common usage appearing in a taxing statute, the meaning which is popular rather than one which is technical has to be adopted. The ac ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... wise to adopt such a construction as is based on the assumption that Parliament merely intended to give so much power as was necessary for carrying out the objects of the Act and not to give any unnecessary powers. In other words, the construction of the words is to be adopted to the fitness of the matter of the statute." The Supreme Court in Commissioner of Sales Tax v. Jaswant Singh Charan Singh[1967] 19 S.T.C. 469 at 473., while explaining the word "charcoal" in the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1958, observed as follows: "A sales tax statute, being one levying a tax on goods, must, in the absence of a technical term or a term of science or art, be presumed to have used an ordinary term as coal according to the meaning ascribed ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ng of it should be rather pressed into service rather than its botanical, scientific or technological signification. "Oil-seeds" is described in the Second Schedule to the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1959, as a species of declared goods under item 6(a) thereto. It runs as follows: "Oil-seeds, other than cardamom and groundnut, that is to say, seeds yielding non-volatile oils used for human consumption or in industry or in the manufacture of varnishes, soaps and the like or in lubrication and volatile oils used chiefly in medicines, perfumes, cosmetics and the like." A similar description of oil-seeds appears in Schedule IV of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957. Chandra Reddy, C. J., and Jaganmohan Reddy, J., interpreting the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ded by a committee specially constituted for the improvement and development of the cultivation and marketing of oil-seeds and of the production, manufacture and marketing of oil-seed products. Herein also significantly "coconuts" are excluded from the definition of "oil-seeds". Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume 5, enumerates the uses to which coconuts are applied. It says: "The nuts supply no inconsiderable proportion of the food of the natives, and the milky juice enclosed within them forms a pleasant and refreshing drink.....The coconut palm also furnishes very important articles of external commerce, of which the principal is coconut oil. It is obtained by pressure or boiling from the kernels, which are first broken up into small pieces ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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