PULLAGURA SUBBAIAH SETTY KURNOOL Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question that is posed by this revision case is whether wheat is a millet for purposes of Schedule III of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957. The revision case relates to the assessment year 1957-58. In the return submitted by the assessee, he claimed that the turnover represented by the sale of wheat was not exigible to tax as it has already suffered tax at the first purchase point. Overruling the objection, the Department levied tax on the purchase of wheat in the view that Schedule III is in applicable to wheat. Hence, the revision. Schedule III catalogues the commodities in respect of which a single point purchase-tax only is leviable under section 5 (3) of the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957. One of the articles included in the Schedule is ' millets '. The point for consideration is whether the expression ' millets ' comprehends wheat. The Department thought that wheat is outside the pale of the expression ' millets'.

(2.) On the other hand, the contention pressed upon us by Sri Seshapani for the petitioner is that the word ' millets ' is comprehensive enough to cover wheat. It is urged by him that the Legislature would not have thought of excluding wheat when the Schedule takes in several articles consumed in the State and so we have to attribute an intention to the Legislature to comprehened ' wheat ' within the ambit of the word ' millets '. We find in difficult to accede to this argument. The various dictionaries which we have consulted seem to exclude wheat from the meaning of ' millets '.

(3.) In Chamber's Encyclopaedia, Volume VII, ' millet' is described, among other things, as :