Supreme Court of India
DELHI COLD STORAGE PVT. LTD.versusCOMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, DELHI-I, NEW DELHI.
- Citation
- 1991 INSC 192
- Decided
- 14 August 1991
- Disposal
- Dismissed
- Bench
- RANGANATH MISRA
Holding
Processing of goods requires a change or alteration in the goods, which cold storage does not effect; therefore, a cold storage is not an industrial company under Sec 2(7)(c) of the Finance Act, 1973.
Issues considered
- Whether the activity of a cold storage constitutes ‘processing of goods’ within the meaning of Sec 2(7)(c) of the Finance Act, 1973.
- Whether Delhi Cold Storage Pvt. Ltd. can be classified as an ‘industrial company’ for the purpose of tax concessions.
Legislation cited
- Finance Act, 1973s. 2(7)(c)
Subjects
industrial companyprocessing of goodscold storageFinance Act 1973tax concessiondefinition of processingSupreme Court
Judgment
DELHI COLD STORAGE PVT. LTD.
v.
A
COMMISSIONER OF INCOME.TAX, DELHI-I, NEW DELHI.
AUGUST 14, 1991
[RANGANATH MISRA, CJ., M.H. KANIA AND B
KULDIP SINGH, JJ.]
Finance Act, 1973: Section 2(7)(c)-Assessee running a cold
storage-Whether an 'Industrial company'-Activities of cold storage
-Whether involve processing of goods. ·
Words and Phrases-Word 'Processing'-Meaning of. c
An ~Industrial Company', as defined in Section 2(7)(c) of Finance
Act, 1973 was entitled to certain concessions in the matter of taxation.
The appellant, a private limited company running a cold storage, laid
claim to such benefits contending that it came within the meaning of D
'industrial company' since the activity carried. on by it came within the
-.
words 'processing of goods'.
The Income-Tax Officer rejected the assessee's claim but the
Appellate Assistant Commissioner conceded the claim, and directed
remission of the proceedings to the Income-Tax Officer for re-computa- E
lion of the tax by treating the appellant as an 'industrial company'. The
Tribunal accepted the appeal of the Revenue and held that the appellant
was not an 'industrial company'. This was upheld by the High Court.
Dismissing the appeal preferred by the assessee, this Court,
F
HELD: I.I The term 'processing' is of a wider amplitude and has
various aspects and meanings. In common parlance 'processing' is
understood as an action which brings forth some change or alteration of
the goods or material which is subjected to the act of processing. The
dictionary meaning of the term is not very different from this meaning
in one sense while various other meanings of wider amplitude are also G
available. [593G-H, 594A]
1.2 In a cold storage, vegetables, fruits and several other articles
which require.preservation by refrigeration are stored .. While as a result
of long storage, scientific examination might indicate loss of moisture
content, that is not sufficient for holding that the stored articles have H
589
.I
590 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1991] 3 S.C.R.
undergone a process within the meaning of Sec. 2(7)(c) of the Finance
A
Act, 1973. [594C]
Chowgule & Co. Pvt. Ltd. and Anr. v. Union of India & Ors.,
[1981] 1sec653, relied on.
B Commissioner of Income-tax v. Radha Nagar Cold Storage (P)
Ltd., 126 I.T .R. 66 and Addi. Commissioner of Income-tax, Kanpur v.
Farrukhabad Cold Storage (P)Ltd., 107 I.T.R. 816, referred to.
c
Kilmarnock Equitable Co-operative Society Ltd. v. /RC., 1.1966]
42 TC 675 at Page 681, referred to.
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 3164
,,
(NT) or 1991.
From the Judgment and Order dated 19.4.1984 of the Delhi High
Court in I. Tax Ref. No. 250 of 1975,
D
H.N. Salve and Pramod Dayal for the Appellant.
J. Ramamurthy, Vijay K. Verma and Ms. A. Subhashini for the
Respondent.
E The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
RANGANATH MISRA, CJ. Special leave granted.
The judgment of the High Court of Delhi is challenged by the
assessee in this appeal. Assessee is a private limited company running
F a cold storage. The year of assessmentis 1973-74. An 'industrial com-
pany' as defined in section 2(7)(c) of Finance Act, 1973 for the
purposes of the First Schedule of that Act was entitled to certain
concessions in the matter of taxation. The appellant laid claim to such
benefits by contending that it came within the meaning of 'industrial
company'. The question that was referred by the Income-tax Appel-
.G late Tribunal to the High Court was:
"Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the case
the assessee company running a cold storage could be held
to be an industrial company for purposes of section 2(7)( c)
of the Finance Act, 1973 and the First Schedule thereto?"
COLD STORAGE v. C.I.T. (MISRA, J.] 591
The Income-tax Officer had not accepted the claim of the appel-
A
lant but the Appellate Assistant Commissioner conceded the claim and
directed remission of the proceedings to the Income-tax Officer for
re-computation of the tax by treating the appellant as an 'industrial
company'. The Tribunal accepted the appeal of the Revenue and held
that the appellant was not an 'industrial company'. The High Court has
approved the conclusions reached by the Tribunal. B
'Industrial compnay' has been defined in section 2(7)(c) of the
Finance Act, 1973 thus:
"Industrial company means a company which is mainly
engaged in the business of generation or distribution of
electricity or any other form of power or in the construction
c
of ships or in the manufacture or processing of goods or in
mining."
(Underlining is ours)
-. The appellant had taken the stand that the activity carried on by
it came witnin the words 'processing of goods'. The_ short question for
D
examination, therefore, is whether the cold storage of the appellant
can be held to have been engaged in the processing of goods.
This question directly arose for consideration of a Division
Bench of the Calcutta High Court in Commissioner of Income-tax v. E
Radha Nagar Cold Storage (P) Ltd., 126 I.T.R. 66. Sabyasachi
Mukharji, J., (as he then was) spoke for the Court in this case. Certain
English cases were taken into consideration to find out the difference
between manufacturing and processing and to find the true meaning of
the word "processing". The word 'processing' has not been defined in
the Income-tax Act. The word 'process' has various meanings, some F
wider than others. Lord Guthrie in Kilmarnock Equitable Co-opera-
tive Society Ltd. v. !RC, (1966) 42 TC 675 at page 681 observed that the
word "does not have the widest significance of 'anything done to the
goods or materials'. The Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court
looked for the meaning in the Oxford Dictionary, Webster's New
.• International Dictionary, Words and Phrases Legally Defined Vol. 4 G
and in Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol. 9. The High Court was impres-
sed by the statement in Encyc10 paedia Britannica, vol. 9 where it was
said:
"The only method by which fresh foods may be preserved
for a considerable period in the raw state is by subjecting H
592 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [ 1991] 3 S.C.R.
A
them to as low a temperature as possible without causing
damage by freezing. Storage at temperature above freez-
ing, in the neighbourhood of 35 F/2 C is .known as cold
storage. Storage at such temperature makes possible the
holding in good condition of many fresh foods for consider-
able periods and their shipment to distant markets to
B consumers."
The High Court proceeded to state:
"The act of cold storage appears to us to be an act
whereby foods or products stored in the cold storage are
prevented from their natural decay. The potatoes which
c are kept in the cold storage are preserved in the original
state and their normal decay is prevented. That, in our
opinion, would be processing the goods, that is to say,
preservation applying a method to the goods, whereby the
goods are prevented from taking its normal course. There-
fore, looking from a broad point of view, in the light of the
definition provided in the several dictionaries to which we
have referred, is appears to us, that in the context of the
present statute, which has used the expression "process-
ing" in contradistinction or differently from the expression
"manufacture", the assessee-company was engaged in the
E act of processing the goods in terms of the Finance Act at
the relevant time."
The Court referred with approval to a decision of the Allahabad
High Court in Addi. Commissioner of lncome-tax, · Kanpur v.
Farrukhabad Cold Storage (P) Ltd., 107 ITR 816. The Calcutta High
F Court's view directly supports the appellant's stand.
In the impugned judgment reported in 156 ITR 97, after dealing
with the cases of the Calcutta and Allahabad High Court, reference
was made to the decision of this Court in Chowgule & Co. Pvt. Ltd.
and Anr. v. Union of India and Ors., [1981] 1SCC653 to find out the
G true meaning of the two words 'manufacture' and 'processing'. After
discussing some precedents this Court observed thus:
"What is necessary in order to characterise an operation as
"processing" is that the commodity must, as a result of the
operation, ·experience some change. Here, in the present
H case, diverse quantities of ore possessing different chemical and
COLD STORAGE >. C.I.T. (MISRA, J.) 593
physical compositions are blended together to produce ore
A
of the requisite chemical and physical composition
demanded by the foreign purchaser and c,bviously as a
result of this blending, the quantities of ore mixed together
. in the course of loading through the mechanical ore handl-
ing plant experience change in their respective chemical
and physical compositions, because what is produced by B
such blending is ore of a different chemical and physical
composition. When the chemical and physical composition
of each kind of ore which goes into the blending is changed,_
there can be no doubt that the operation of blending would
amount to "processing" of ore within the meaning of
section 8(3)(b) and Rule 13. It is no doubt true that the
blending of ore of diverse physical and chemical composi- C
tions is carried out by the simple act of physically mixing
different quantities of such ore on the conveyor belt of the
mechanical ore handling plant. But to our mind it is
immaterial as to how the blending is done and what process
is utilised for the purpose of blending. What is material to D
consider is whether the different quantities of ore which are
blended together in the course of loading through the
Mechanical ore handing plant undergo any change in their
physical and chemical composition as a result of blending
and so far as this aspect of the ·question is concerned, it is
impossible to argue that they do not suffer any change in
their respective chemical and physical compositions." ·
The meaning given to the word 'processing' and the test laid
down to fin~ out whether the operation amounts to processing by the
three-Judge Bench of this Court runs counter to the conclusions
reached by the Allahabad and Calcutta High Courts. As we have F
already pointed out, the two direct decisions on the point are the cases
from Allahabad and Calcutta. The other cases that have been cited in
the Calcutta judgment or at the Bar are cases not relating to the
meaning or ambit of the relevant expression in the definition of section
2(7)(c) of the Finance Act, 1973.
G
We have already noted that processing is a term of wide
amplitude and has various aspects and meanings.
In common parlance 'processing' is understood as an action
which brings forth some change or alteration of the goods or material
which is subjected to the act of processing. The dictionary meaning of H
594 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1991] 3 S.C.R.
the term is not very different from this meaning in one sense while
A
various other meanings of wider amplitude are also available. The
view taken by Allahabad and Calcutta High Courts did not find favour
with the three-Judge Bench of this Court and in clear terms the judg-
ment indicates that processing involves bringing into existence a diffe-
rent substance from what the material was at the commencement of
B the process.
In a cold storage, vegetables, fruits and several other articles
which require preservation by referigeration are stored. While as a
result of long storage, scientific examination might indicate loss of
moisture content that is not sufficient for holding that the stored arti-
cles have undergone a process within the meaning of section 2(7)(c) of
c the Finance Act, 1973. The three-Judge Bench decision must be taken
to have overruled the view of the Allahabad High Court in Addi.
Commissioner of Income-tax, Kanpur v. Farrukhabad Cold Storage
( P) Ltd., (supra) and that of the Calcutta High Court in Commissioner
of Income-tax v. Radha Nagar Cold Storage (P) Ltd., (supra).
D
The appeal has, therefore, to be dismissed and the opinion of the
Delhi High Court has to be affirmed.
Parties are directed to bear their own costs.
N.P.V. Apppeal dismissed.
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