1.
2017-TIOL-15-HC-DEL-GST]
Union of India and ORS. vs. Narendra Plastics Pvt. Ltd.
Facts
The petitioner herein, an
exporter had received export orders of the date prior to 1st July,
2017 for the fulfillment of which, it had to undertake imports of inputs. Under
an Advance Authorization Scheme (AAS) of the Government, entitles duty
exemption to the exporter manufacturers such as the petitioner and therefore
the person importing such inputs/goods would not be required to pay basic
customs duty, additional customs duty, education cess, anti-dumping duty
safeguard duty and transition product specific safeguard duty, wherever
applicable.
The petitioner was agitated
that on account of change brought about by GST regime, it would have to pay
IGST out of its own sources on the export order accepted prior to 01/07/2017
and thus faced blockage of working capital until refund thereof, would be
granted by the Government at a future date. It had exhausted its overdraft
limits with the banks and therefore faced a liquidity crunch. The prayer of the
Petitioner therefore was not to be asked to pay the additional IGST on such
imports as that was arbitrary and unreasonable. The petitioner did not question
the legislative competence to levy the additional IGST but only questioned its
applicability for fulfillment of export orders placed and accepted prior to
July 01, 2017 and sought to avail the credit outstanding in respect of
authorisations issued to it prior to 01/07/2017.
Held
Considering prima facie
case for grant of the prayer, the Court issued interim directions to the
Government to allow the petitioner to avail credit against advance
authorisation license issued prior to 01/07/2017, subject to terms as regards
quantity and value of such credit and also subject to other conditions such as
verification by the Customs department as to the export of credit availability vis-à-vis
advance authorisation license, furnishing undertaking by way of affidavit,
fulfillment of export obligation etc. Further, the interim relief was limited to the export
orders placed prior to 01/07/2017 only and not thereafter.
2.
[2017-TIOL-01-HC-Mum-GST] Union of India vs. Dr. Kanaga Sabapathy Sundaram Pillai,
Founder, My Integrating Society India Net NGGO
Facts
A PIL in this case was made
challenging implementation of the Goods and Services Tax chiefly on the grounds
that: (a) there was lack of awareness and preparedness both by
the states/UT as
well as public
at large (b)implementation in the
midst of financial year was not valid (c) Acts in their current form were
doubtful to be effective in reducing regulatory and administrative
hurdles. In the scenario, it was
required to defer the implementation till legal hurdles are removed and the
rates for all items are finalised and taken up in February, 2018 in the Budget session of the
parliament for initiation of the proposals from April 1, 2018. During this
time, awareness programmes be conducted to make the traders familiar and they
can be given facilities of software interfaced with the trade account as per
the Tax registration. As against this,
it was argued for the Government that in addition to 30 state legislatures
having passed state GST Acts & necessary rules being notified, over 65 lakh
taxpayers had already migrated to GST network and rates of taxes were
notified. Further, GST Seva Kendra were
set up at every Commissionerate, division and range to answer questions of tax
payers & will continue to do so.
States also followed the same procedure & everything was put in
public domain and 60,000 offices in Central and State Governments were trained
in GST law.
Held
Petition was not
entertained with the observation that since the entire government machinery was
geared up, the petitioner could not urge or seek directions to postpone the
decision of implementation from 01-07-2017.
3.
[2017-83-taxman.com-281-Delhi] Union of India
vs. J. K. Mittal & Co.
Facts
Legal services under
service tax law were taxable under reverse charge mechanism. When GST was to be
implemented from July 1, 2017, among
others, Notification No. 13/2017 – Central
Tax (Rule) dated 28-06-2017 was issued
specifying services wherefore reverse charge mechanism is applicable. Entry
No.2 therein referring to services of advocates gave rise to interpretational
issues. The drafting of this entry created ambiguity as to whether all legal
services and not only representational services provided by legal practitioners
would be governed by reverse charge mechanism. The Finance Ministry therefore
issued a clarification by way of a press release dated 15th July,
2017. In this background, the petition was filed in Delhi High Court by the
petitioner. During the hearing, the questions that arose interalia included
whether the press release issued had a legal sanctity and whether
recommendations of the GST council could be modified, clarified or amended etc.
by a notification, notice or a circular of ‘press release’ and by whom. The
court expected the Respondents to provide para-wise reply to the petition and
answer various queries raised therein.
Held
Considering
that Respondents desired time to address various legal and constitutional
issues, the Hon. Court directed till further orders, not to take any coercive
action again law firms of advocates including limited liability partnerships of
advocates providing legal services for non-compliance of requirements under the
GST law. The court also stated that if any of such persons already registered
under GST law also would not be denied benefit of this interim order.
