This story is from January 20, 2015

NEW DELHI: Health conscious people are generally taken in by manufacturers advertising aerated water as fruit juice but some of these drinks have less than 13% fruit juice content.

Shocked by this fact, the Supreme Court on Monday came down heavily on one such manufacturer. It asked unscrupulous manufacturers to stop taking people for a ride and ruled that higher tax meant for aerated water drinks would be levied on them as they were not entitled to the concessional tax regime for fruit juices.

The court dismissed a petition filed by M/s Trade Lines seeking concessional VAT regime meant for fruit juices for its product 'Appy Fizz', manufactured by Parle. It said lower tax could be applied if the drink was a fruit juice and not just aerated water with added fruit flavour.

A bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justices A K Sikri and R K Agrawal remained unconvinced by the arguments of petitioner's counsel S K Bagaria. "What you give people in the name of fruit juice is just aerated water. And you claim that they will develop muscles by drinking this," the bench said. It noted that 'Appy Fizz' had only 12.7% fruit juice content.

"Please increase fruit juice content in your drink and then claim tax relaxation. You are taking people for a ride by saying that they will develop muscles by drinking it," the court said.

The bench said several courts, including the Kerala High Court, had held concurrently that the product was to be taxed at 20% rate, which was meant for aerated water drinks, rather than the concessional 12.5% rate for fruit juices. It said there was no need to interfere with the HC order.

The petitioner 'Trade Lines' had approached the SC challenging the Kerala HC's November 17 order directing it to pay 20% VAT on the product. After examining the contents of the drink, the HC came to the conclusion that the product came in the category of aerated water and not fruit juice.

"The product in question is an aerated soft drink consisting of fruit juice also and the content of the fruit juice is only 12.7%. In other words, the product is an aerated soft drink and the fruit juice is added as flavouring agent which cannot alter the character of the product," the HC had said in its order.

Read this in Hindi: फ्रूट जूस के नाम पर पानी बेच रही हैं कंपनियां