Per Chowdhury, J.M. - These appeals by the assessee relating to the assessment years 1983-84 to 1985-86 arise out of the common order of the Commissioner of Income-tax, Madurai dated 16-3-1989 passed under section 263 of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Since a common point is involved in these appeals, they are heard together and are disposed of by a consolidated order for the sake of convenience.

2. The assessee is a co-operative society carrying on the business of purchase and sale of milk. At the time of assessments the assessee claimed investment allowance on machineries used for pasteurising the milk, which was allowed by the Assessing Officer during the relevant assessment years. On a perusal of the assessment orders for the assessment years under consideration the Commissioner of Income-tax found that those orders were erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of Revenue as the allowance of investment allowance under section 32A as claimed by the assessee was not justified. Accordingly the Commissioner issued a show-cause notice under section 263 dated 12-1-1989 to the assessee calling upon the assessee to explain as to why an order enhancing or modifying the assessments or cancelling the assessments directing the Assessing Officer to be made afresh could not be passed. In response to the said notice, the assessee filed its reply dated 8-2-1989. After carefully considering the assessee's contentions, for the reasons stated by him in his order under section 263 the Commissioner held that the assessee is not engaged in the manufacture or production of any article and as such is not entitled to investment allowance under section 32A. He therefore directed the Income-tax Officer to modify the assessments for the assessment years under consideration by withdrawing the investment allowance already granted by him in the original assessments. Against the said order of the Commissioner, the assessee is in appeal before the Tribunal.

3. Before us the assessee's counsel submitted that the activities of the assessee-society includes manufacturing and processing the pasteurised milk by converting the raw milk. Further it was submitted that the assessee was also engaged in the manufacture of ghee and kova and hence it was entitled to investment allowance under section 32A. In support of this contention, the learned counsel for the assessee placed reliance on the order of the Tribunal in the case of Adarsh Dugdhalaya (P) Ltd. v. Ninth ITO [1989] 35 TTJ (Bom.) 470.

4. On the other hand, the learned Departmental Representative submitted that the assessee-company has been carrying on the business of sale of milk purchased by it from the primary co-operative societies. For the purpose of sale the assessee was required to keep the milk so purchased for some days. So that the milk is not destroyed the assessee had to pasteurize the same, but then the end-product as a result of such process is only milk. He contended that the connotation of the words "manufacture or production" as used in section 32A of the Act denotes that the end product obtained as a result of the process should be different from the input, but this is not the case in the present assessee's case. Reliance in this regard was placed on the Madhya Pradesh High Court decision in the case of Mittal Ice & Cold Storage v. CIT [1986] 159 ITR 18 and also the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Delhi Cold Storage (P) Ltd. v. CIT [1991] 191 ITR 656. He therefore pleaded that no interference is called for in the order passed by the Commissioner.

5. We have heard the parties and perused the papers filed before us. As already stated, the main business of the assessee-society is to purchase and sell milk. The raw milk purchased from primary co-operative societies is pausterised and in this process the bacteria is destroyed enabling storing of the milk for a few days. The ITO had allowed investment allowance on generator, prepack filling machine etc. installed for pausterising the