Full Judgment
2. The Appellate Collector was mistaken in his assessment said the counsel. He referred to the Mcgraw Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms without taking into account the fact that the auto track is nothing but a tractor and does only what a tractor is designed to do. The Automotive Research Association of India has certified that the auto track is a tractor. Furthermore, in referring to the BTN the Appellate collector read only Heading 87.02: he should have read Item 87.01 which covers TRACTORS (OTHER THAN THOSE FALLING WITHIN HEADING NO. 87.07) WHETHER OR NOT FITTED WITH POWER TAKE OFFS, WINCHES OR PULLEYS. The explanatory note specifies that for the purposes of this heading, tractors are deemed to be wheeled or track-laying vehicles constructed solely or essentially for hauling or pushing another vehicle, appliance or load. This, said the learned counsel, establishes that the BTN recognises their auto track as a tractor and not as a motor vehicle.
3. A look at the printed catalogue is enough to convince anyone that the vehicle is only meant for traction, that is, to pull the load-bearing trailer.
4. The learned counsel for the department, however, said that this is only a motor vehicle; it may have received certain modification in its building, because it pulls a trailer; but in spite of the little modification, it is difficult to see that it ceases to be a motor vehicle. Its correct assessment should be under Item 34I-CET. The learned SDR read the order-in-appeal. The advertisement itself calls the thing only an auto track. She also read from the Mcgraw Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms the definition of a tractor and said that this definition did not fit this motor vehicle.
The people who deal with it do not call it a tractor but a vehicle; she then read the order in original.
5. In answer the learned advocate for M/s. Bajaj Auto referred to the pamphlets and sought support for his arguments from 1985(21) ELT 485.
The tractor need not only be for agricultural uses; there can be tractors for other work and duties too.
6. It is difficult to see auto track as a tractor since a tractor as we all understand it conventionally and as it is understood in most technical authorities, is a four wheel or track-laying vehicle meant for hauling loads. However, we will record the definition given by Mcgraw Hill Dictionary. It defines tractor as: (1) An automotive vehicle having four wheels or a caterpillar tread used for pulling agricultural or construction implements.
(2) The front pulling section of a semi-trailer. Also known as truck tractor.
7. The vehicle in the dispute is not a tractor and is not even conventionally or technologically accepted to be one, no matter what the appellants may claim now. The dictionary, for one thing, specifies it to be a four wheeler or caterpillar tread auomotive vehicle. M/s.
Bajaj Auto's track is neither a four wheeler nor a caterpillar tread vehicle. The other definition is that a tractor is the front pulling section of a semi-trailer.
8. Although the Automotive Research Association of India does not describe the auto-trailer as a semi-trailer, it is nowhere else known as such.
9. The BTN Heading No. 87.01 which is preferred by the Learned Advocate does refer to tractors constructed solely for hauling or pushing other vehicle or appliances or load. But the same BTN has Heading 87.02 for MOTOR VEHICLES FOR THE TRANSPORT OF PERSONS, GOODS OR MATERIALS (INCLUDING SPORTS MOTOR VEHICLES, OTHER THAN THOSE OF HEADING NO.87.09). This heading covers light weight three-wheeled vehicles of similar construction.
10. The dispute appears to have been thrown up by the manufacturers' desire to take advantage of the fact that the trailer has to be coupled to the auto track hauler, and that the two are not built as one integral chassis; that is to say, the trailer can be detached from the power unit; and in so doing, the front hauling unit can be designed as a tractor since it pulls or hauls the rear section, the trailer. But we cannot lost sight of the fact that two are meant to function together in tandem. The hauling unit must always be coupled to the trailer if it is to serve any purpose at all. Unlike a true tractor which can haul and pull widely diverse loads, do multifarious job and execute a number of operation, this so-called tractor cannot do anything except haul its designated load carrying trailer. Tractors are independent units and, frequently, or even normally, find their loads in the work to which they may be put. As often as not, they have no designated load-carrying unit with which they alone have to work in conjunction. These conventional tractors can plough a field when it is coupled to a mechanical plough, pull a load-carrying trailer, haul another vehicle and so on. A caterpillar tractor fitted with the necessary equipment can pull down trees, move rocks, bulldoze, pull trailers, smoothen the earth and do several jobs one associates with tractors. The M/s. Bajaj auto track is a single-job vehicle that pulls only its selected partner, and nothing more. It is important to remember that it works as a vehicle with its appointed load-carrying trailer, as a single unit, not as the true tractor which can take different work-fellows to work it. The auto track has none of the versatility of the true tractors, and is severely limited in its utility. It is similar to the articulated buses that we see on the roads, the front hauling four-wheeled unit having two axles, the driver cabin and the power plant, and a rear body joined to it by articulation, in which passengers are carried. Usually this rear unit has a single axle. The two units because of the articulated jointing, can move relative to one another, allowing a freedom of turning that is denied to a single unitized body vehicle of the same size. Those articulated buses are assessed not as a tractor and trailer but as a motor vehicle. The auto track and its trailer has the features of these articulated vehicles.
It is, therefore, not correct to say that auto track is a tractor, and not a motor vehicle, and that the assessment made by the Assistant Collector and the Appellate Collector was wrong.