- (1.) THIS is a revision against the order of the Dy. Commissioner (Appeals) E&t, Jodhpur, dated 13. 5. 63.
(2.) THE brief facts of the case are that the non-petitioners who deal in coconuts were assessed @ 5% at general rate on the sale of water coconut by the Sales Tax Officer. THE non-petitioners went in appeal before the Dy. Commissioner who accepted the appeal and imposed the sales tax @ 2% instead of the general rate. The State has come up in revision against the above order of the Deputy Commissioner, Excise & Taxation (Appeals) Jodhpur, dated 13. 5. 63. The Government Advocate has argued that oil cannot be extracted from the coconut with water and hence coconut with water cannot be treated as oil seed and the Sales Tax on sale of such coconut with water cannot be treated as oil seed and the sales-tax on sale of such coconut is leviable at general rate. The counsel for the non-petitioner has cited STC 1961, Vol. XII, p. 629, according to which Mysore High Court has held that the expression "oil Seeds" occurring in sec. 14 (vi) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 includes coconut and copra and therefore the maximum sales tax which can be demanded on the sale or purchase of coconut or copra is two percent. I have carefully heard the counsel for both the parties and have also gone through the ruling of the Mysore High Court. This fact is not disputed by the learned Government Advocate that both coconut and copra are commodities from which oil can be extracted. Coconut oil is extracted both from coconut and copra although coconut oil is generally extracted from dry copra. The crucial question before me is whether they are seeds from which oil is extracted. The ordinary dictionary meaning of the word "seed" is that it is a flowering plants unit or reproduction or germ capable of developing into another such plant, It is a common knowledge that the unit or reproduction of the coconut plant which is admittedly a flowering plant is the coconut with its shell and cook and that it is such coconut when planted that becomes capable of developing into another coconut plant. That being so, it is clear that a coconut is a seed and since oil can be extracted from a coconut, it is an oil seed within the meaning of that expression occurring in sec. 14 (vi) of the Central Sales Tax Act. The revision is therefore rejected. .;