- (1.) THE petitioner is a dealer in tobacco leaf meant for being used in the manufacture of prepared tobacco paste smoked through hookas. He moved the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes to determine under Section 18 (since repealed) of the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, whether the sale of such tobacco leaf is taxable under the above Act. The learned Commissioner has decided that by tobacco for hooka mentioned in item 18 of the schedule of exemptions appended to the Act is meant manufactured or prepared tobacco paste meant for direct consumption in a hooka and not raw tobacco which may he converted into such paste for smoking through a hooka. The petitioner challenges this interpretation.
(2.) TOBACCO for hooka does not appear to have been defined in any Central or State law. But in item 9 in Schedule III appended to the Central Excise and Salt Act (I of 1944) one finds the following expression "Country tobacco if intended for manufacture into hooka tobacco." So the intention of the Central Act would appear to be that by "hooka tobacco" is meant the prepared or manufactured paste (made with tobacco leaves and molasses etc.) which is smoked through a hooka. However it does not appear anywhere that the same meaning is to be attached to the term "hooka tobacco" or "tobacco for hooka" in the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941. Where a term is not defined by statute the dictionary meaning of it is to be taken as the meaning intended. The actual expression in question is "tobacco for hooka". This can be paraphrased as tobacco meant to be used in a hooka. The learned Commissioner has, however, added the word "directly" in this context, though this is not based on any authority. Tobacco meant for a hooka, i.e., meant to be smoked through a hooka, may be either the raw tobacco leaves (which are sometimes smoked direct through a chillum, being just twisted into a wad), or the tobacco prepared into a paste for being smoked through a hooka. This is in accordance with item 9 in Schedule III appended to the Central Excise and Salt Act (I of 1944) upon which the learned Government Pleader has laid some emphasis. It is mentioned in this item that tobacco means any form of tobacco, whether cured or uncured, and whether manufactured or not, and includes the leaf, stalks and stem of the tobacco plant but does not include any part of a tobacco plant while still attached to the earth. It is to be noted that this definition is much wider than the dictionary meaning of the word "tobacco", which is either the tobacco plant (of genus Nicotiana) or the dried leaves of the plant used for smoking, chewing or as snuff.
(3.) THE petitioner's case for a much wider interpretation of the expression "tobacca for hooka" would thus appear to be supported both by the dictionaries and the Central Excise and Salt Act, 1944. Item 18 in the Schedule of exemptions appended to the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act, 1941, is a part of the statute itself. Tobacco for hooka has been exempted by statute from sales tax. The expression has not been qualified in any manner. The learned Commissioner appears to have restricted its meaning to the prepared paste meant for being used directly in a hooka, thereby reading more into the statute than appears in its wording.;