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10. Mr. Krishnan Venugopal, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondents, on the other hand, submitted:-

1) In view of the fact that the question whether yeast would be a plant or not being a mixed question of law and the process for finding out the same having not been gone into, this Court should not pronounce any judgment thereupon.
2) In any event 'yeast' being a 'fungi' is not a plant as has been noticed in the New Encyclopedia Britannica Volume 19 page
59.

3) The 'dictionary' and the 'chemical meaning' of 'yeast' being 'living organism' whereas the chemical being a non organism, the decision of the Kerala High Court should be held to have laid down a correct law as opposed to the decision of the Gujarat High Court.

The Medical Dictionary also attributes the same meaning to yeast. Encyclopedia Britannica describes yeast as "any of certain economically important single-celled fungi". It is further stated that "in food manufacture 'yeast' is used to cause fermentation and leavening. The fungi feed on sugars, producing alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide; in beer and wine manufacture the former is the desired product, in baking, the latter. In sparkling wines and beer some of the carbon dioxide is retained in the finished beverage. The alcohol produced in bread making is driven off when the dough is baked."

Encyclopedia Americana describes yeast as "a tiny living plant". "It makes the bread light and tender; it also adds flavour."

18. Sri. S.C. Dubey, a Baking Technician of repute of U.S. Wheat Associates, New Delhi has done an extensive research on yeast and its functions. It is profitable to refer to the following passage from his writing:-

"Yeast is unicellular microscopic plant. Its structure consists of cell wall, protoplasm, and vacuole. It requires food (in the form of simple sugar), moisture and temperature climate for its growth and reproduction. Yeast multiplies by budding. When yeast cell is placed in a liquid medium at optimum temperature (80-85F) containing simple sugar (dextrose or fructose), then the cell starts growing buds on its cell wall which keep on growing until daughter cells acquire the same size as mother's cell. Then the buds separate from mother cell and start producing other buds.

27. Encyclopedia Americana (International Edition) Vol. 29 at pages 657- 658 details the procedure for growing 'yeast'. It speaks of different 'yeasts' grown to be used for different purposes, in the following:-

" The procedures for growing yeasts are fundamentally the same in each industry. A pure culture is obtained by isolating a single yeast cell and growing it on a nutrient medium consisting of sugars (molasses, starchy grains, potatoes), a source of nitrogen (ammonia, grain steepwater), minerals and water of controlled acidity. As growth proceeds, the culture is transferred to successively larger batches of medium until the final batch often exceeds 100,000 gallons. When growth is completed, the yeast cells are separated from the spent medium on which they grew.