BALASUBRAHMANYAN, J.

These two sales tax cases raise the question whether the wood sold by the assessee in each case can be regarded as "firewood" and so entitled to exemption from sales tax under a Gazette notification issued by the State Government in Notification No. II(1)/Rev/386(g)/74 dated 4th March, 1974. The notification reads as under :

"In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 17 of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959 (Tamil Nadu Act 1 of 1959), the Governor of Tamil Nadu hereby makes an exemption in respect of the tax payable by any dealer under the said Act on sale of -

(1) ................

(2) .................

(3) Firewood." *

It will be observed that the exemption under this notification does not define or explain what "firewood" means, what the expression includes, and what it excludes. The absence of such a definition is by no means regrettable. On the contrary, it leaves open the subject for discussion on the basis of sound common sense. As Evershed, Master of the Rolls, once observed, common sense is not entirely excluded even in tax cases.

The assessee in one of the revisions is a timber merchant under the name of National T