RAMAKRISHNAN, J.

The short question for decision in this is whether sandalwood oil will fall within one of the articles mentioned in the classification of goods serially numbered as item 51 in the First Schedule to the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1959, which gives a description of goods in respect of which single point sales tax is levied under sub-section (2) of section 3 of the Act and the rate of such levy.

In the year of assessment the appellant who is a manufacturer of sandalwood oil had a very large turnover in sandalwood oil exceeding rupees eleven lakhs, the bulk of which were export sales and about rupees a lakh and odd were sales in this State. The assessing authority levied tax on the single point basis at 6 per cent. on the sales treating them as falling under serial No. 51, which refers to "scents and perfumes, powders, snows, and scented hair oils". The assessee appealed to the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal. In the view of the majority of the Tribunal sandalwood oil was a perfume within this category. But the dissentient minority opinion of the Accountant Member was that it fell under serial No. 6(a) of the Second Schedule, which refers to :

"Oil seeds, other than cardamom and groundnut, that is to say, seeds yielding non-volatile oils used for human consumption or in industry, or in the manufacture of varnishes, soaps and the like or in lubrication and volatile oils used chiefly in medicines, perfumes, cosmetics and the like"

and which is assessable at 2 per cent. The assessee's contention was that sandalwood oil fell under neither of these categories but was a vegetable oil falling within serial No. 20 of the First Schedule assessable at 2 per cent. The majority opinion of the Tribunal prevailed and the assessment was confirmed. This revision is filed before this Court against that finding.Learned counsel for the petitioner drew our attention to the fact that serial No. 6(a) of the Second Schedule deals with oil seeds, which are then split up into two groups, those which yield non-volatile oils and those which yield volatile oils. The view of the minority of the Tribunal holding that sandalwood oil fell under the second group is clearly wrong, because sandalwood oil is not a volatile oil yielded by oil seeds.

The next question is whether it is a perfume as found by the majority. The word "perfume" is defined in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary as

"volatile particles, scent, or odour emitted by any sweet smelling substance". A book of reference on" Chemical Process Industries" *

by Harris Shreve (Mac Graw Hill series publication) which appears to deal with the matter fully and authoritatively was supplied to us by the learned counsel for the petitioner. It defines "perfume" as any mixture of pleasantly odoriferous substances incorporated in a suitable vehicle. The constituents of a perfume are three-fold : (i) a vehicle or solvent, (ii) a fixative, and (iii) an odoriferous element. The vehicle is usually a preparation of highly refined ethyl alcohol mixed with more or less water. Fixatives are defined as substances which are of a lower volatility than the odoriferous elements and which retard and even up the rate of evaporation of the various odorous constituents. They may be of animal nature like civet or they may be of vegetable nature like resin. Odoriferous elements include essential oils which are defined as volatile odoriferous oils of vegetable origin. This will include sandalwood oil. Now the purpose served by each of these three constituents of a perfume is also explained in the book, above referred to.

Some of the essential oils like sandalwood are used both for their odoriferous as well as fixative properties. The odoriferous element vaporises at a high temperature which ranges between 285 to 290 Degree C in the case of sandalwood oil. A perfume, to have its full effect, must be volatile readily at the ordinary air temperature. For this purpose a solvent like alcohol which has no irritant proper