UNTWALIA, C. J.

1. This is a reference under section 33 (1) of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1959 (Bihar Act 19 of 1959), hereinafter called the Act, by the Commercial Taxes Tribunal, Bihar, on the following two questions of law :

2. " (1) Whether all or any of the articles, namely, blank registers, exercise books, letter-pads, labels, loose printed forms are exempted from special sales tax as coming within the purview of the word books under item No.18 of Schedule III of Notification No. STGL-AR-107/59-9134 F. T. dated the 1st July, 1959

3. (2) Whether on a proper construction of item No.2 in Notification No. STGL-11687 F. T. dated the 27th August, 1959, all or any of the articles, namely, blank registers, exercise books, letter-pads, labels, loose printed forms, envelopes, cards, flat files are paper and as such exempt from payment of special sales tax ?"

4. The assessee is a press carrying on business under the name and style of Minerva Printing Works. It deals in printing and selling of printed articles and stationeries. The assessee returned a gross turnover of Rs.3,37,417 and claimed various exemptions to the tune of Rs.2,75,585.

5. Exemption to the tune of Rs.29,526 was allowed, but the assessees claim of exemption from taxation on the turnover on account of sale of articles, such as blank registers, exercise books, letter-pads, labels, loose printed forms, envelopes, cards and flat files was not allowed by the Assessing Officer. The assessment order is dated 29th June, 1964, and is annexure 1 to the statement of the case. The assessee went up in appeal before the deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes. The Deputy Commissioner by his order dated 31st August, 1965 (annexure C), confirmed the order of disallowance of the claim of exemption on account of the sale of the above goods by the assessee. It went up in revision before the Tribunal. The Tribunal by its order dated 20th August, 1966 (Annexure E), did not accept the contention of the assessee and confirmed the orders passed by the authorities below. The claim of exemption, both from the general sales tax and special sales tax in regard to the articles aforesaid is based upon Notification No. STGL-AR-107/59-9134 F. T. dated 1st July, 1959. This is a notification issued by the Governor of Bihar in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (a) of sub-section (3) of section 4 of the Act. Goods mentioned in Schedule III appended to the notification were exempted from the levy of both general sales tax and special sales tax. Item 18 of Schedule III is "books and periodicals". Thus, there is a complete exemption from tax so far as books and periodicals are concerned. The question for determination, however, is whether the goods dealt with by the assessee in this case could be characterised as books within the meaning of item 18 of Schedule III of the notification dated 1st July, 1959.

6. 2. There is a direct decision of the Allahabad High Court on the point at issue in the case of Industrial and Commercial Service, Allahabad V/s. Commissioner of Sales Tax ([1963] 14 S. T. C.299 ). On a consideration of the meaning of the words "book" and "diary" given in three of the standard dictionaries, Desai, C. J. , gave a restricted meaning to the word "books" given in section 4 of the Act which was under consideration in that case. The learned Chief Justice further said that exercise books are books according to the wider meaning, but the State Government by including exercise books in the notification interpreted the word in a restricted sense so as not to include exercise books. Here also, while dealing with the second question of law, I would refer to another notification which includes exercise books and all other kinds of articles dealt with by the assessee. The term "book", therefore, given in the notification dated 1st July, 1959, has to be given a restricted meaning. The word "books" would thus mean a collection of sheets of papers written or printed, strung or bound to