JAGANMOHAN REDDY, J.

This is an application for the issue of a writ of certiorari against the Commissioner of Sales Tax in respect of an assessment made by him. The petitioner is a manufacturer of ready-made clothes and has been as such ordered to pay sales tax upon the turnover of his business in the sale of ready-made clothes under Section 3 of the Hyderabad General Sales Tax Act for the period from 1st May, 1950, to 31st March, 1951. The learned Advocate for the petitioner contends that this order of the Sales Tax Officer confirmed by the Commissioner is without jurisdiction in that :-

(a) ready-made clothes are exempt as they were made out of exempted articles specified in item 17 of Schedule I read with the Notification of Government No. 75 dated 2nd August, 1950;

(b) as cloth is a commodity essential to the life of the community, any sales tax imposed on it by any Act of the State Legislature unless the same is reserved for the assent of the President of the Republic and has received his assent, is ultra vires Article 286 of the Constitution.

With respect to the first point no authority has been cited by the petitioner's Advocate for the proposition that any article made out of an exempted article should also be exempt. Item 17 of Schedule I of the Hyderabad General Sales Tax Act is as follows :-

"17. Cloth, of such descriptions as may from time to time be specified by notification in the Gazette, costing less per yard than Rs. 3 or such other sum as may be so specified."

The Government by Notification No. 75 referred to above specified all cotton cloth of Indian manufacture costing per yard less than Rs. 3 as being exempt from sales tax. Ex facie it would appear that the Legislative intent of the above exemption is only to exempt cloth which costs less than Rs. 3 per yard and it can hardly be said that ready-made garments can be sold per yard or that they can be described as cloth costing less than Rs. 3 per yard. The said garments are sold as units which are made out of cloth upon which labour is expended and the cost of which includes cost of the cloth, labour and profit. The article so made is entirely a different article from that specified in Item 17.

All fiscal enactments should be interpreted strictly and the subject is not to be taxed unless the language of the Statute clearly imposes the obligation. Respondent's Advocate has cited a passage from Crawford's Interpretation of Laws (1940) pages 506-507 in support of his argument that all exemptions from taxation must be strictly construed and not extended beyond the express requirements of the language used. The passage cited refers to American Revenue Laws where they are not regarded as penal laws in the sense that requires them to be construed with strictness in favour of the defendant. They are regarded rather in their remedial character as intended to prevent fraud, suppress public wrong, and promote the public good and are construed so as most effectually to accomplish those objects (See Cliquot's Champagne Fenerstein, Fenerstein v. United States ((1866) 3 Wall. 145) and as cited in Maxwell's Interpretation of Statutes, 8th Edn., page 253). Whatever the view-point, there is authority for the proposition that exemptions also must be strictly construed and limited to the exemption itself. In Commissioners of Inland Revenue v. James Forrest ((1890) 15 App. Cas. 334), certain observations of Lord Halsbury, Lord Chancellor, also support the view that since all exemptions from taxation increase the burden on other members of the community, they should be deprecated. In Varasuki & Co. v. Province of Madras ([1951] 2 S.T.C. 1; [1951] 2 M.L.J. 449) a Bench of the Madras High Court has also held that exemptions must be strictly construed.

What we have to see is the legislative intent of the enactment under consideration and whether the assessee can really come within the exemption specified thereunder. The argument of the learned Advocate that the exemption gi