Rakesh Bhatnagar

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has burst the bubble over chewable bubble gum being a blend of sweetmeat.

The minty dice is a sporty mouth freshener that can’t be clubbed with low taxed confectionary, it ruled.

“Bubble gum in the common parlance cannot be construed as mithai. When we apply common parlance test and in fact ask someone to bring the sweets from the market, he will never bring bubble gum,” a bench of Justices Ashok Bhan and Dalveer Bhandari said while quashing a High Court ruling that put bubble gum in the company of high-calorie consumable sweets.

“In common parlance, even items of confectionery will not be construed as sweetmeat. In fact, bubble gum is not an item for eating. It is kept in the mouth and after chewing the same is thrown out. The bubble gum while kept in the mouth by the children is also inflated as a balloon,’’ the judges explained.

“In fact, it is used as a ‘mouth freshener’. It is not made only of sugar. It contains gum base, vexes, etc along with sugar,’’ the judges said.

According to Wikipedia, bubble gum is a type of chewing gum especially designed for blowing bubbles.

The judges scrapped the Allahabad High Court ruling that said bubble gum being confectionery or mithai was liable to 6% tax.

The UP government had imposed a 10% tax on it saying it wasn’t a confectionery item.

Source : DNA