( 1 ) THIS is a reference under Section 23 (1) of the Madhya Pradesh Sales-tax Act by the Board of Revenue. The following questions have been referred for the opinion of this Court:

(1) Whether the quarrying and breaking of boulders into stone is manufacture within the meaning of Section 2 (i) (a) of the Act? (2) Whether on the facts of the case the transactions are taxable sales within the meaning of Section 2 (a) of the Act?'

( 2 ) FOR the purposes of answering these Questions a few facts have to be narrated. The assessee is one G. R. Kulkarni. He is a railway contractor, who takes on contracts the digging and preparing of gitti (metal) and collecting it at the railway sidings according to his contracts and who sells this metal for constructions of roads and as ballast etc. The short question, therefore, is whether the breaking of boulders into metal (gitti) is a process of manufacture.

( 3 ) WE may mention that the case arose before the passing of Act 20 of 1953, which introduced a section defining 'manufacture'. That definition says that manufacture includes any process or manner of producing, preparing or making any goods. In our opinion, even without this definition the word 'm

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