In re Manipal Technologies Limited (GST AAAR Karnataka)
Section 6B of the Telangana Records of Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971 mandates that any person effecting transaction on the land such as sale or purchase or mortgage, such sale or purchase or mortgage document has to be registered before the registering authority by paying registration fee and stamp duty. Such registered document will have fiduciary value and is considered as document of title. Further, if any person effects any alienation or transfer of land without such registered document, either alienee or the transferee has to deposit registration fees and the stamp duty in accordance with the provisions of the Registration Act, 1908 and get the certificate from the Mandal Revenue officer. In such cases the certificate issued by the revenue officer is considered as document of title. Therefore, either a registered document or certificate issued from the Mandal revenue officer after paying registration fee and stamp duty is considered as document of title and on the basis of such document of title the revenue authority updates the Record of Rights. The updated information in the Record of Rights is entered in the Pattadar Pass Book cum Title Deed. Therefore, the Pattadar Pass Book cum Title Deed is not a document of title as claimed by the Appellant and is not classifiable under Chapter Heading 4907 of the Customs Tariff Act, The Pattadar Pass Book cum Title Deed is classifiable under Chapter heading 4820 of the Customs Tariff Act.
The Appellant has relied on several case laws to buttress their case that Pattadar Pass Book qualifies as a document of title and that the Record of Rights maintained with the Mandal Revenue Officers is not a document of title. We find that all the relied upon case laws were rendered in the context of settling land disputes. The Courts in the said cases were concerned with the pleas regarding the title to the disputed property and in that background have held that the title to the property cannot be decided merely on the basis of the revenue records and the Pattadar Pass Book assumes significance as a document of title. We, however, are concerned with deciding the classification of the item ‘Pattadar Pass Book’ in terms of the Customs Tariff Act for which purpose the description of goods as contained in the Tariff read with the relevant Explanatory Notes of the HSN are of importance.
FULL TEXT OF ORDER OF APPELLATE AUTHORITY OF ADVANCE RULING, KARNATAKA
1. At the outset we would like to make it clear that the provisions of CGST, Act 2017 and SGST, Act 2017 are in pari materia and have the same provisions in like matter and differ from each other only on a few specific provisions. Therefore, unless a mention is particularly made to such dissimilar provisions, a reference to the CGST Act would also mean reference to the corresponding similar provisions in the KGST Act.
2. The present appeal has been filed under section 100 of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act 2017 and Karnataka Goods and Service Tax Act 2017 (herein after referred to as CGST Act, 2017 and SGST Act, 2017) by M/S MANIPAL TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED, 3rd Floor, 16 330, Udayavani Building, Tile Factory Road, Press Corner, Manipal, Udupi-576104 (herein after referred to as Appellant) against the advance Ruling No. KAR/ADRG 35/2019 Dated: 16 Sept 2019.
Brief Facts of the case:
3. The appellant is engaged in the business of printing books, magazines, calendars, dairies, bank pass books, bank account opening forms and various other stationary items required for banking industries, educational institutions and various other customers.
4. The appellant filed an application for Advance Ruling under section 98 of the CGST Act, 2017 and KGST Act, 2017 on the question as to whether Pattadar Pass Book cum Title Deed is a “Document of Title” classifiable under HSN 4907 or as a “Passbook” under HSN 4820.
5. It was decided by the Karnataka Advance Ruling Authority vide Ruling No. KAR/ADRG 35/2019 dated Sept 16th 2019 that Pattadar Pass book cum title deed is appropriately classifiable under HSN 4820.
6. Aggrieved by the said Ruling of the Authority (herein after referred to as ‘impugned order’), the appellant has filed an appeal under section 100 of the CGST Act, 2017 and KGST Act, 2017 on the following grounds.
7. Appellant was awarded a contract by the Government of Telangana through Telangana State Technology Services Ltd (hereinafter referred to as TSTS) for Secured Printing and Delivery of Pattadar Pass Book cum Title Deed to all Pattadars and landowners on behalf of Chief Commissioner Land Administration (hereinafter referred to as CCLA). The raw material required for the printing of Pattadar Pass Book cum Title Deed belongs to the appellant whereas the data/content for printing is supplied by the CCLA in electronic format.
8. Appellant submitted that this Pattadar Pass Book cum Title Deed (PPB cum TD) is a document in the form of a small bound book containing the details of land owned by a person (Pattadar), Photo identity of Pattadar and changes of ownership subsequent to the issue of e-PPB cum TD. This PPB cum TD is issued by Revenue Department under the Law called Record of Rights Act (RR Act).
9. Appellant submitted that the activity of printing involves both supply of goods and services which is recognized as ‘composite supply’ in terms of the definition of under Section 2(30) of the CGST Act, 2017. Further, Section 8 of the CGST Act, 2017 determines taxability of composite supply which states that ‘a composite supply comprising two or more taxable supplies, one of which is a principal supply, shall be treated as a supply of such principal supply ‘. Thus, classification of composite supply, as goods or service would depend on which supply is the principal supply. The appellant relied upon the Circular No. 11/11/2017-GST dated 20.10.2017 issued by the CBEC wherein it is clarified that in printing activity, where only content is supplied by the publisher or the person who owns the usage rights to the intangible inputs while the physical inputs including paper used for printing belong to the printer, supply of printing [of the content supplied by the recipient of supply] is the principal supply and therefore such supplies would constitute supply of service falling under heading 9989 of the scheme of classification of services. Rate of tax on supply of service is provided in Notification No. 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate) dated 28.06.2017, as amended The relevant portion of the Notification is extracted hereunder:
