Page 126 - GSTL_23rd April 2020_Vol 35_Part 4

452 GST LAW TIMES [ Vol. 35
case such amount collected falls short to recover its capital and operational ex-
penditure. This may be subjected to revision with prior approval of concerned
person with whom the applicant has an agreement.
5. In this background, the applicant had sought Advance Ruling on -
(i) Whether supply of purified water to public in empty unsealed cans
is exempt under GST law?
6. The applicant’s interpretation if law :
6.1 The applicant submits that the Entry No. 99 of the Notification No.
2/2017-Central Tax (Rate), dated 28th June, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Noti-
fication’) exempts the supply of water and applicant reproduced the relevant
extract of the notification as under :
“Water [other than aerated, mineral, purified, distilled, medicinal, ionic, battery,
de-mineralized and water sold in sealed container] is exempt from GST”.
6.2 Further, the applicant submits that a bare reading of the aforesaid
entry of the notification reveals that all types of water is exempt under GST other
than those sold in sealed containers. That means every type of water sold in un-
sealed containers are exempt under GST and this is evident from the usage of the
term ‘and’ in the entry of the notification. The applicant submitted that the term
‘sold in sealed container’ runs along with the remaining terms of the notification.
Further, the term ‘and’ prior to the term ‘water’ should be read in a manner that
is conjunctive and in such a way that the phrase ‘in a sealed container’ is appli-
cable for all the types of water enumerated in the entry. In this regard, the appli-
cant relied on the following :
 As per the law lexicon dictionary, the word “and” expresses the “re-
lation of connection or addition”.
 In the case of Sukhnandan v. Suraj Bali, it was held that the word
“and” should be understood in its natural grammatical sense to in-
dicate a conjunctive sense and not a disjunctive sense and cannot be read
as “or”.
6.3 In light of the above applicant submitted that the words “water sold
in sealed container” should be read in conjunction with words “purified, miner-
al, distilled etc.” and it should not be read as a separate sentence/clause. In other
words, “water sold in sealed container” should be understood in the context of
purified water also. Therefore, applicant contended that supply of purified wa-
ter, unless sold in sealed container, should be eligible for exemption under Entry
99 of the Notification.
6.4 In support of this, the applicant placed a reliance on the Circular
No. 52/26/2018, dated 9th August, 2018 which has clarified the applicability of
the aforesaid Notification.
The relevant extract of Circular No. 52/26/2018, dated 9th August, 2018
has been reproduced below :
In this circular, attention is drawn to the entry at Sl. No. 99 of Notification
No. 2/2017-Central Tax (Rate), dated 28 June, 2017, by virtue of which wa-
ter [other than aerated, mineral, purified, distilled, medicinal, ionic, battery,
de-mineralized and water sold in sealed container] falling under HSN code
2201 attracts NIL rate of GST.
Accordingly, supply of water, other than those excluded from Sl. No. 99 of
Notification No. 2/2017-Central Tax (Rate), dated 28-6-2017, would attract
GST LAW TIMES  23rd April 2020  246