Judgment

KASLIWAL, J-

(1) COMPUTER Code No. 12964 of 1991 [In Special Leave Petition (C) No. --- of 1991] Delinked. See separate order in the concerned file.

(2) SPECIAL leave granted in all the other petitions.

(3) IN all the above appeals the short controversy raised is whether gurlauta and raskat and rab-galawat and rab-salawat are liable to the levy of market fee under the U.P. Krishi Utpadan Mandi Adhiniyam of 1964 (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

(4) A division bench of the Allahabad High court referred the question for being considered by a full bench. The full bench of the High court by decision dated 2/04/1990 held that gur-lauta and raskat and rab-galawat and salawat were not an agricultural produce within the meaning of the Act. Subsequently other benches followed the aforesaid decision of the full bench. All the above appeals by grant of special leave are directed against the judgment of the full bench dated 2/04/1990 as well as the subsequent decisions following the full bench case.

(5) SECTION 2(a) of the Act defines agricultural produce and reads as under:

"2. (a) agricultural produce means such items of produce of agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, apiculture, sericulture, pisciculture, animal husbandry or forest as are specified in the Schedule, and includes admixture of two or more of such items, and also includes any such item in processed form, and further includes gur, rab, shakkar, khandsari and jaggery."

(6) IT may be mentioned that the words gur, rab, shakkar, khandsari and jaggery were added in the above definition of agricultural produce by U.P. Act No. 10 of 1970. To decide the controversy raised in these cases the definition of agricultural produce has to be taken into consideration after the words added by the aforesaid U.P. Act No. 10 of 1970. Sugarcane is an agricultural produce out of which juice is extracted. The said juice gets thickened by dehydration and when it reaches a particular pigment, it takes the form of rab which is a semi-solid form of the sugarcane juice. After the process of boiling this rab is put in a crystalliser where it is allowed to get cooled and crystals are formed when the same is rotated in the crystalliser. The crystallised rab is then put into centrifugal machines in which through the process of infusion of sulphur, the sugarcane juice is cleaned and whitened.

(7) THE rab which is not put into the centrifugal machine but is dehydrated and is allowed to be hardened by the open pan process takes the shape of gur which is normally used for home consumption.

(8) THE rab which is not allowed to be hardened is also sold in semi-solid form but those persons who desire to make further profits put the rab into centrifugal machines and by the process of infusion of sulphur they obtain khandsari in the dry powder/crystallised form and the waste of rab which is obtained in the liquid form is known as molasses.

(9) THE residue which is known as molasses is further utilised by many people by boiling in the open pans and the same is again re-processed by cleaning and dehydrating and later by sulphitation is taken in powder form. This first process out of molasses of rab in the semi-solid form is also sold in the market because this inferior quality contains less content of sucrose and is called rab-galawat. Rab-salawat is also prepared by the same process out of the molasses and is further inferior quality of rab. It has been contended on behalf of the appellants that rab-galawat and rabsalawat are thus nothing but different forms of rab although a little and/or more inferior in quality. It has been contended that the main ingredient being sugarcane out of which juice is extracted and when gur, rab, khandsari and shakkar have been added in the definition of agricultural produce, the rab-galawat or rab-salawat being the inferior forms of rab are necessarily an agricultural produce within the a