V.K.Mehrotra, J. - (1.) M/s. Rashtra Deep Laboratory, Firozabad, is the applicant in this Court in the present revision under Section 11(1) of the U. P. Sales Tax Act. It has assailed the view taken by the Sales Tax Tribunal, Kanpur, that the turnover of "water for injection" manufactured by it during the year 1974-75 was liable to tax at the rate of 7 per cent as an unclassified item and not at the lower rate of 3 per cent as being a medicine or pharmaceutical preparation as provided in Notification No. ST-II-332/X-1012-1971 dated 15th November, 1971, issued in exercise of the powers under Section 3-A of the Act. The Assistant Commissioner (Judicial) Sales Tax had held it taxable at the lower rate and had, differing from the view taken by the assessing authority that it was taxable as an unclassified item, granted relief to the dealer.
(2.) It has been noticed by the Tribunal in its order that the applicant manufactures and deals in medicines and water for injection. It has held that water for injection admittedly being sterilised distilled water free from pyrogens even after redistillation, remained distilled water. By itself, water for injection had no pharmaceutical or medicinal properties and could not be treated as a drug or medicine or pharmaceutical preparation.
(3.) In Delhi Cloth and General Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Rajasthan AIR 1980 SC 1552, it was ruled that: ...in determining the meaning or connotation of words and expressions describing an article or commodity the turnover of which is taxed in a sales tax enactment, if there is one principle fairly well-settled it is that the words or expressions must be construed in the sense in which they are understood in the trade, by the dealer and the consumer. It is they who are concerned with it, and it is the sense in which they understand it that constitutes the definitive index of the legislative intention when the statute was enacted. As sales tax the liability falls on the seller, who in his turn passes it on to the consumer. As purchase tax, the liability falls directly on the purchaser. A long train of authorities supports that view, and we need refer only to the recent judgment of this Court in Porritts and Spencer (Asia) Ltd. v. State of Haryana AIR 1979 SC 300, in which reference has been made to some of them." Likewise, in Indo International Industries v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, U.P. 1981 UPTC 481 (SC), the Supreme Court observed (in paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Reports) that: It is well-settled that in interpreting items in statutes like the Excise Tax Act,or Sales Tax Acts, whose primary object is to raise revenue and for which purpose they classify diverse products, articles and substances, resort should be had not to the scientific and technical meaning of the terms or expressions used but to their popular meaning, that is to say, the meaning attached to them by those dealing in them. If any term or expression has been defined in the enactment then it must be understood in the sense in which it is defined but in the absence of any definition given in the enactment the meaning of the term in common parlance or commercial parlance has to be adopted...Having regard to the aforesaid well-settled test the question is whether clinical syringes could be regarded as 'glassware' falling within entry 39 of the First Schedule to the Act ? It is true that the dictionary meaning of the expression 'glassware' is 'articles made of glass' (see Webster's New World Dictionary). However, in commercial sense glassware would never comprise articles like clinical syringes, thermometers, lactometers and the like which have specialised significance and utility. In popular or commercial parlance a general merchant dealing in 'glassware' does not ordinarily deal in articles like clinical syringes, thermometers, lactometers, etc., which articles though made of glass, are normally available in medical stores or with the manufacturers thereof like the assessee. It is equally unlikely that a consumer would ask for such articles from a glassware shop. In popular sense when one talks of glassware such specialised articles like clinical syringes, thermometers, lactometers and the like do not come up to one's mind. Applying the aforesaid test,...which the assessee manufactures and sells cannot be considered as 'glassware'....;