Dabur India Limited Through Authorized Signatory Vs Union of India & Ors. (Supreme Court of India)
The dispute concerned the classification of the product “Odomos” under the Customs Tariff Act, 1975 for GST purposes—whether it should be treated as a medicament under Heading 3004 or as a mosquito repellent under Heading 38089191. The Authority for Advance Ruling classified the product under Chapter 38 as a mosquito repellent, and this view was upheld by the Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling. The matter was then challenged before the Allahabad High Court, which dismissed the writ petition, and the Supreme Court subsequently declined to interfere, dismissing the Special Leave Petition.
Read HC Judgment in this case: Odomos is not a Medicine and is a Mosquito Repellent: HC
Before the High Court, the petitioner argued that Odomos had the characteristics of a medicine, was used to prevent vector-borne diseases, and that its chemical composition supported classification as a medicament. It was contended that the authorities had wrongly classified the product merely as a mosquito repellent. The Revenue, however, maintained that the product had been correctly classified under the specific tariff entry relating to insect repellents and that the authorities had adopted a legally sound reasoning process based on material on record.
