An excise duty dispute has resulted in the classification of 'scrabble' as a game, as against an educational toy or a puzzle.

The Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices S.H. Kapadia and Aftab Alam delved into the history, development and structure of Scrabble, meaning in the Oxford Dictionary before siding with the order of the Commissioner of Central Excise.

The appeal which revolved around the classification of the popular game, had Praveen Kumar, appearing for Pleasantime Products, contending that Scrabble was a 'toy', not a game and therefore beneficiary of the exemption under the Central Excise and Tariff Act. Disagreeing with the contentions, Justice Kapadia said, "the difference between a 'game' and a 'puzzle' could be marked by three different features: outcome, clue-chance and skill. In a puzzle, the outcome is pre-determined and fixed. It is not so in Scrabble." Shreekant Terdal represented the Commissioner.

"'scrabble' is an ingenious mix of anagrams, crosswords, chance and skill. It involves a lot of luck. One of the crucial ingredients is that you cannot know what tiles are on your opponents' rack or which you will draw next. So, aided by artful strategy, there is a good chance of beating someone with a better vocabulary," he added. Reasoning further, the bench opined that the two main elements of 'scrabble', chance and skill are absent in a toy.

The Bench did not budge to Playtime's fervent plea to classify it as an educational toy which would have exempted them from payment of excise duty. Dismissing the appeal against the decision of the Commissioner of Central Excise, "Two main elements of 'scrabble', chance and skill are absent in a toy. Therefore, even 'Junior Scrabble' is not an educational toy" said the Bench.

In a related appeal filed by Funskool India, the same bench declared that 'snake & Ladder' and 'Monopoly' are games, consequently not exempt from payment of excise duty. K.R. Nambiar argued for Funskool while standing counsel B. Krishna Prasad appeared on behalf of the Commissioner.