JUDGMENT

M.C. Desai, C.J. - At the instance of the Sales Tax Commissioner, U. P., the Judge (Revisions) Sales Tax, U.P. has submitted to this Court this statement of a case, the question formulated by him being,

"Whether methylated spirit is a spirituous liquor taxable at single point liable to tax or as an unclassified item pies per rupee at multi point ?"

2. Under the notification No. 905/X dated March 31, 1956, issued by the State Government in the exercise of the power conferred by Sec. 3-A of the U.P. Sales Tax Act turnover of sale of "spirituous liquor of all kinds other than country spirit" is liable to tax either at the point of sale by the importer or at the point for sale by the manufacturer depending upon whether the goods are imported from outside Uttar Pradesh or are manufactured in Uttar Pradesh. Goods not coming within the scope of this notification are to be taxed under Sec. 3 of the Act at the rate mentioned in it. The question that falls for consideration is whether methylated spirit is covered by the notification or not. The Judge (Revisions) held that it is and that since the assessee is neither the importer nor the manufacturer the turnover of the sale by him is not liable to tax. Hence this reference.

3. Methylated spirit will be taxable under Sec, 3 only if it is not "spirituous liquor." The question is what exactly is "spirituous liquor"? This is not a phrase of art nor is it defined anywhere and, therefore, it is but legitimate to turn to the Dictionary and Encyclopaedia in order t,o ascertain its accepted meaning.

4. The following are the definitions for "spirit", "spirituous", "liquor,", "spirituous liquor", "methylate" and "methylated spirit", in Murrays Dictionary: -

"Spirit" is "a liquid of the nature of an essence or extract from some substance, esp., one obtained by distillation; a solution in alcohol of some essential or volatile principle; liquid such as is obtained by distillation, spec, that which is of a alcoholic nature; a strong alcoholic liquor obtained by distillation from various substances and employed for drinking."

`Spirituous' when used with the word `liquor' means `alcoholic'.

`Liquor' means "liquid for drinking; beverage, drink. Now almost exclusively spec,, a drink produced by fermentation or distillation."

`Spirituous liquor' means "a liquor produced by distillation; spirits."

`Methylate' means "to mix or impregnate with methyl; usually, to mix (spirit of wine) with such, a quantity of pyroxylic spirit or some other substance as will render it unfit for drinking so as to exempt it from the duties imposed in Great Britain and other countries upon alcohol."

`Methylated spirit' means "containing about 10 per cent, of pyroxylin spirit, is the form in which alcohol is most commonly employed for industrial purposes."

5. The following is an extract from 48 Corpus Juris Secundum "Intoxicating liquors" paragraph 11 at, p. 139: -

`Spirituous liquor' has been defined as any intoxicating liquor produced by distillation or by rectifying, compounding or otherwise treating or using distilled alcoholic fluids in distinction from fermented or brewed intoxicating beverages, The term `spirituous liquors' is not synonymous with the term `intoxicating liquors'......, All spirituous liquor is intoxicating; but there are varieties of intoxicating liquor which cannot properly be described as spirituous. The latter term is properly restricted to such liquors as are produced by the process of distillation, ...... and has been held to include any liquor usable as a beverage which contains alcohol obtained either by fermentation or distillation or both."

6. The following is the history of "industrial methylated spirit" given in Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 1, 1949:

"Owing to its very high price, duty-paid alcohol cannot be used for most industrial purposes; exhaustive experiments were therefore carried out in England about the year 1853 to ascertain whether it would be possible so to treat alcohol as to enable