The State of Tamil Nadu vs V. Rajagopalan

Sethuraman, J.—The only question involved in this tax revision case is, whether the calico or bookbinding cloth comes within the scope of

item 4 in the Third Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, which ran as follows at the relevant time :

All varieties of textiles (other than durries, carpets, druggets and pure silk cloth) made wholly or partly of cotton, staple fibre, rayon, artificial silk

or wool including handkerchiefs, towels, napkins, dusters, cotton velvets and velveteen, tapes, niwars and laces and hosiery cloth in lengths.

Even the Joint Commercial Tax Officer has stated that bookbinding cloth is not a simple cloth though he has also stated that it is more a binding

material than a cloth. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner has not given any particular reason as to why it does not come within the scope of

textiles. The Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal reversing the conclusion of the authorities below, held that the bookbinding cloth concerned fell within

the description of ""textiles"" enabling the assessee to claim exemption. We have considered carefully the contention of the learned Additional

Government Pleader that bookbinding cloth cannot be regarded as textile. The entry in item 4 of the Third Schedule extracted above is a

comprehensive entry. The learned Additional Government Pleader on the basis of the Judgment of this court in State of Tamil Nadu v. East India

Rubber Works, Madras [1974] 33 S.T.C. 399, contended that on the analogy of this court holding in that case that P.V.C. cloth would not fall

within the scope of item 4 of the Third Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, we must hold in this case also that the calico or

bookbinding cloth will not fall within the scope of the said entry. We are unable to accept this contention for the simple reason that no materials

were placed before the Tribunal for the purpose of showing that bookbinding cloth is the result of such an elaborate process so as to make it a

different commodity with different properties and characteristics.

Under these circumstances, we see no ground to interfere with the conclusion of the Tribunal. Accordingly, the tax revision case fails and is

dismissed. There will be no order as to costs.