H.L.AGRAWAL, J. - (1.)THE Sales Tax Tribunal, Orissa, on making a reference under section 24 (1) of the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947 (for short, "the Act"), has referred the following questions of law for determination by this Court :
(1) Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the learned Member, Additional Sales Tax Tribunal, was justified in holding that sales tax and no purchase tax was leviable on dal with effect from 1st October, 1974 ? and (2) Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the learned Member, Additional Sales Tax Tribunal, was justified in holding that dal does not come within the ambit of the expression "all forms of gram" and is therefore not subject to purchase tax with effect from 1st October, 1974 and is subject to sales tax from the said date ?

(2.)THE facts : For the assessment year 1975-76, the assessing officer, while making the assessment under section 12 (4) of the Act, imposed sales tax on the transactions of different kinds of dal made by the dealer and raised an additional demand of Rs. 5,437 on the ground that dal was a different item than gram and could not be included in any form of gram, a notified commodity. The dealer, however, challenged this imposition on the ground that dal, being one of the forms of gram and already subjected to purchase tax with effect from 1st October, 1974 was not liable to further tax. The dealer, however, also failed before both the appellate forums.
It may be mentioned that by Notification No. 36360-F. dated 28th September, 1974, "all forms of horsegram, blackgram, jowar and khesari" were made taxable a the purchase point with effect from 1st October, 1974. All forms of green gram (mung), hill gram (arhar), maize, ragi, etc. , were similarly included in the list for levy of purchase tax by notification dated 15th March, 1975. The Tribunal has taken the view that the expression "all forms of gram" could include only all varieties of gram, big or small, irrespective of their colour, and dal, being different from gram, the expression could not be stretched to include dal within its ambit.

(3.)LET us consider the meaning of the word "form". The Revenue authorities have interpreted this word as seen above to include all varieties of gram. In my opinion, the expression "form" is not referable only to its varieties. The meaning of the word "form" according to the Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary is :
" Shape : a mould : something that holds, shapes, etc. "
The Lexicon Webster Dictionary gives the meaning of the word "form" inter alia as follows :
" External shape or appearance considered apart from colour or material; a particular shape;. . . . . . "
I am therefore inclined to take the view in favour of the dealer that when the notification stated all forms of gram and not all varieties of gram, then obviously, it intended to include the various species and some of its by-products as well. Some of the decisions which I may presently refer to also support this view that unless gram was reduced into an entirely different species, such as, besan or shattu, it continued to remain as a broken form of gram itself. Now let us proceed to consider some of the cases. Reliance was placed by the dealer at the reference stage on the unreported decision of this Court in S. J. C. No. 15 of 1976 dated 16th July, 1980 (State of Orissa v. Baijnath Flour Mills) where it was laid down that :
" Dals made out of grams were not to be considered as a different commodity but as one of the forms of gram. " which led to the making of the reference.