1. The sole question for determination in this case is whether ghee sold in

sealed containers comes under entry 39 of Schedule I to the General Sales Tax

Act, 1125. That entry reads as follows:

"Food stuffs sold in sealed containers:"

The Malayalam version of the identical entry occurring in the Kerala General

Sales Tax Act, 1963, is in the following terms:

2. In State of Bombay V. Virkumar, A. I. R.1952 Supreme Court 335, Bose J.

extracted the following definition of the expression "foodstuff" given in

Webster's International Dictionary:

1. Anything used as food.

2. Any substance of food value as protein, fat, etc., entering into the

composition of a food."

and said that it will be seen from the above and other definitions that

"foodstuff" has no special meaning of its own, that "it merely carries us back to

the definition of 'food' because 'foodstuff' is anything which is used as 'food'

", that so far as 'food' is concerned, it can be used in a wide as well as a

narrow sense and that much must depend upon the context and background in which

the word occurs.

3. In the same case Fazl Ali J. considered butter as coming within the expression

"foodstuff". Ghee is nothing else tha