SHARFUDDIN AHMED, J.

( 1 ) THE appellant instituted a suit against the Government of Andhra Pradesh, through the Chief Secretary (O. S. 88/1/56) before the III Additional Judge, city Civil Court, Secunderabad for the recovery of certain amounts from the sales tax Department. It was stated that the plaintiff was a registered partnership firm carrying on business in the manufacture and sale of agricultural implements. For the 1950-51, the Sales Tax Officer (C) Circle, Secunderabad had wrongfully levied a tax of Rs. 2344/- and for the subsequent year a sum of Rs. 5208/ -. "The assessments were exparte and though the appellant preferred an appeal before the Appellate Commissioner, it was dismissed without going into the merits of the case. A revision was filed and even there the appellant was unsuccessful. Later, he filed a writ petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution ; but the High court without going into the merits of the case, dismissed the writ petition mainly on the ground that the plaintiff-appellant bad an alternative remedy by way of a regular suit. Later on, application for leave to appeal to Supreme Court was dismissed and a Special Leave Petition filed before Supreme Court also met the same fate. It was finally rejected on 3-10-1955, the appellant was therefore obliged to file a suit as the assessment for the years mentioned was arbitrary, wrong and baseless. It was further urged that the authorities had no jurisdiction and the assessment was made exparte. The appellant being a dealer in agricultural implements from scrap iron was exempt from the payment of the sales to in accordance with Section 2 (f) of item 29 of the IInd schedule under the. It was contended on behalf of the defendant-respondent that the appellant was a dealer in goods in articles manufactured out of iron and steel. His claim that he was only a dealer in agricultural implements from scrap iron was not correct. The Tax for the 1951-52 had not been paid by the appellant and accordingly as he had failed to furnish the statements and produce account books, the sales tax authorities had assessed to the best of their judgment. It was further urged that the salt was time barred under Section 24 of the Hyderabad general Sales Tax Act which was the law applicable at that relevant period. A rejoinder was filed reiterating the position taken by the appellant in the plaint. On these pleadings the learned trial judge framed as many as nine issues and after examining the plaintiff-appellant and the Salts Tax Officer and D.W. 1 and marking some documents, dismissed the suit of the appellant with costs. The appeal is directed against this judgment. The two grounds urged by the learned Counsel for the appellant Sri Kondapi before this Court are : that the appellant being a dealer in agricultural implements prepared out of scrap iron, is exempted from payment of sales tax and the imposition of the sales tax by the officer was arbitrary. The second ground is that the. . suit was within time having been filed within six months from the date of the last order i.e. this order of the Supreme Court rejecting the petition to special leave i.e. 3-10-55. So fat as the question of limitation is concerned, under section 24 of the Hyderabad General Sales Tax Act, it is laid down that :"no suit shall be instituted against the Govt. and no suit, prosecution or other proceeding shall be instituted against any Officer or servant of the Government in respect of any act done or purporting to be done under this Act, unless the suit, prosecution or other proceeding is instituted within six months from the date of the act complained of. "the tax was admittedly levied on 13. 2. 1951 and the suit was instituted on 11-6-1955. Therefore it could not be. according to the section, within the prescribed limit of six months The learned counsel for the appellant however urged that under Section 14 of the LIMITATION ACT, 1963, the appellant is entitled to compute the period spent by him in proceeding in gold faith in writ petition against the Order of that Sales Tax Authorities. Section 14 of the Limitation act provides :"in computing the period of limitation prescribed for any suit, the time during which the plaintiff has been prosecuting with due diligence another civil proceeding, whether in a Court of First Instance or in a court of Appeal, against the dependant, shall be excluded, where the proceeding is founded upon the same cause of action and is prosecuted in good faith in a court which, from defect of jurisdiction, or other causes of a like nature is unable to entertain it. "the pre-requisites of the application of this section are that the plaintiff has been prosecuting with due diligence another civil proceeding in a court of appeal and is prosecuted in good faith in a Court which from defect of jurisdiction or other cause of a like nature is unable to entertain it. This court sitting in writ jurisdiction is certainly a Court of Appeal within the meaning of that section. But the question is whether the time spent in pursuing the matter in high Court can be computed for the purpose of appeal as it could not beheld that this Court from defect of jurisdiction was unable to entertain the-petition. The jurisdiction of this Court in writ petition is certainly wide enough to cover case of this nature. Strictly construing the section, therefore, it could not be; held that the writ petition was dismissed from the defect of jurisdiction or other causes of a tike nature. But, in the cases cited before me, it has been, held that this section has to be liberally construed and though, the causes of a like nature have to be of the similar nature as defect of jurisdiction, failure to secure relief on the ground of having alternative relief, should be construed to be from defect of jurisdiction. In Narayana v. Commissioner H. R. and C.E., A. P., Utnamaheswaram, J. held that: -" The terms of section 14 of the LIMITATION ACT, 1963 are applicable to a case where the plaintiff bona fide litigated his right under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the High Court. The words "court of Appeal" in Section 14 have to be construed in a broad sense as including a court which has power to bring under review the decision of an inferior court. "following the earlier decision in Biradavolu Kalahastiah v. Tangirala Chenga-the learned Judge found that the provisions of Sec. 14 are applicable and that the time taken in the High Court of Andhra in proceeding with the writ application is deductible under Sec. 14 of the LIMITATION ACT, 1963. In the said case, the learned Judge however did not advert to the fact whether the last limb of Sec. 14 was attracted or not; but in the previous case (Kalahastiah v Chsngamma (2) this aspect of the case also was considered and following a bench decision of the Madras High Court in Koppolu Venkatasami v. Uttarkar Sara Bai 3 it was held that when a revision petition was admitted by a Judge of the High Court, it meant that it was fit one for further consideration by that court and that the prosecution of the civil revision petition should be deemed to be bona fide. On a perusal of the judgment however, it appears that even then, this aspect was not fully considered. But in Janki Pershad v. Ram Kripal 4 it was observed that: the words or other causes of a like nature in Sec. 14 (2) should be liberally construed. They must be construed ejusdem gsneris with defect of jurisdiction, that is to say, the defect must be of such a character as to make it impossible for the court to entertain the suit or application and to decide it on merits. "decisions which have taken different view are also available; for example, a bench of the Patna High Court in Radha Kishun v. Firm Srinivas Ram Kumar has held that Section 14 of the LIMITATION ACT, 1963 would only be attracted when there is refusal to interfere by the High Court due to defect of jurisdiction or any cause of a like nature. I am inclined to follow the dictum that Sec, 14 requires liberal construction. The discussion is more or less of an academic nature inasmuch as it has been conceded that according to the decision of the Supreme court in Provincial Government of Madras (Now A. P.) v. J. S. Basvappa it has been held that the period of limitation prescribed in Sec 18 of the Madras general Sales Tax Act, 1939 applies to suits for damages and compensation in respect of acts done under the and does not apply to suits for refund of tax alleged to be illegally collected. Section 18 of the Madras Act is in pan materia with section 24 of the Hyderabad General Sales Tax Act, Therefore, the period of limitation will be three years from the date of the levy of the sales tax. In that view, the suit will be within time coupled with the fact that section 14 of the LIMITATION ACT, 1963 will be attracted to it. Therefore-so far as the question of limitation is concerned, it has to be answered in favour of the appellant. The next question for consideration (which is the main question) is whether the appellant is liable to exemption of sales tax in view of section 2 (f) of item 2. This item 29 of Schedule I exempts raw iron and steel and agricultural implements manufactured from the same, from the operation of the, that is goods thus manufactured are exempted from the Sales Tax. The question is what is the material on record to show that the appellant was manufacturing agricultural implements from the scrap iton. What is scrap iron has not been defined anywhere; but if it is to be deemed to be the same stuff as raw iron mentioned in item 29 of Schedule I. agricultural implements manufactured from that stuff have to be exempted Unfortunately, the appellant has not furnished any information to the Sales Tax Authorities in regard to the manufacture st his goods. The order of assessment is based on the personal inspection of the assessing authority. The lower Court has elaborately dealt with this aspect 01 the case and reproduced a part of the order to substantiate the case of the Department that for want of account bocks and other relevant statements the sales tax authorities are bound to levy tax according to the best of their judgment. The relevant passage is as under: "M/s Peerani and Co. are the oldest and the leading iron merchants at Secunderabad. Although several extensions were granted to the assessee he had not filed the return as required under rule II of the At last on 22nd January 1951, in response to a notice under rule 13 of the Rules, he appeared before me with a few cash memos muster rolls and note books said to contain the sales, were produced these books contained total sales shown in cash memos The assessee had no record of the purchases made by him, He had no account showing the wages paid to the workmen or other expenses incurred by him for manufacturing the various articles. The assessee has three courtyards at Ranigunj containing materials and at each place, several workmen are doing work. Besides this he had workshops at Nallagutta. My enquiries reveal that he has branch of his own at Bombay, They also have a foundry in the Industrial Area under a different name. All the brother manage the business they also have business in second Hand Motor Parts and Motors I visited their shops and inspected all the courtyards containing iron material and there are over fifty to sixty workman working under them. The material could easily be estimated to be over two lakhs of rupees. They purchased the material form the military disposals and auctions all over India. The attitude of the assessee was very unhelpful in giving any information regarding business The closed books of other dealers of same business at Ranigunj disclosed a turnover of about Rs. 4,00,00/- during the previous year. This dealer is far bigger than the other dealers the total business could therefore be easily estimated the sales at Rs. 4,00,000/-in the previous year they have inspected the sales premises and estimated the sales. The assessee declared that he had no bank account at that time and it was found that he had accounts by the L. T. authorities. The workshop were inspected several times and it was noticed that 500/-of the total estimated sales of Rs. 4,50,000/-could be taken as texable sales and the rest as agricultural implements. I therefore determine his total turnover for 1950-51 at Rs. 4,50,000/-and the tax turn over at Rs. 2,25000/-on the above basis. The tax at the rate of 0-0-2 thereon would be paid uin opne instalment and two instalment of Rs.234/- each should be paid as indicated in the Demand Notice. The sales Tex Officer has been examination to substantiate his case. He stated that he improtected the premises made an order as the result of his own observation that the appellant did not icre co-operate with him in either producing the account books or nay statements. Therefore it could not be urged that the assessment by the Department was liable to be reviewed. The learned counsel for the appellant contended that allowing 50%of the total estimate towards agricultural implements was arbitrary there being no basis for it; but as stated above the appellant having failed to produce any account book or statements, the assessing authority had to fall back on his own in section According to him he visited the promises more than once and as a result therefore that part of the raw material was being used for manufacturing agricultural implements and part of it for other purposed Therefore he was justified in levying tax on half the cannot he the subject matter of the dispute before this court. It is only when the assessment is arbary and without jurisdiction that the courts can interfere. In the instant case the applicants having failed to produce any reliable date, the assessing authority was within its jurisdiction in imposing the tax according to section 12 of the Hyderabad General sales Tax Act. I think the order of the lower court therefore refusing to interfere with record. In the result the appeal is dismissed with costs.