Classification of goods—The present appeal has been filed against the Advance Ruling pronounced by the Maharashtra Authority for Advance Ruling.

M/s Saint-Gobain India Private Limited (the appellant) is engaged in the business of manufacturing and trading of glass and gypsum products. One of the gypsum products manufactured and marketed by the Appellant is the “Gypsum Board.

The Appellant is proposing to manufacture a new category of product under “Glass reinforced gypsum board” which is essentially going to be a gypsum plaster, reinforced with glass-fiber.

The Appellant had filed an Advance Ruling Application on the question of eligibility to avail the beneficial rate of GST for the proposed product in terms of Sl. No.92 of the Notification No.1/2017-IT (Rate) dated 28.6.2017 as amended from time to time.

The advance ruling authority held that  the Appellant was not qualifying the “eligibility test- for filing an Advance Ruling before the Authority in terms of Section 95(a) of the CGST Act, 2017, since the proposed product is not in 'existence' at all for obtaining an advance ruling under GST. They further observed that since the issue in the present case pertains to “classification” of a proposed product, they cannot proceed ahead to give the ruling in absence of the physical samples of the proposed product under consideration.

The only moot issue before us is whether the Advance Ruling application filed by the Appellant is maintainable in terms of Section 95(a) read with Section 97(2) of the CGST Act, 2017 or not.

Held that— The Appellant may approach the Maharashtra Advance Ruling Authority with a fresh application along with the sample/reports of the products and in that case, the MAAR shall decide the issue on merits as per the provisions of law.