Order Date – 09 February 2023

Parties: Idex India Pvt. Ltd. Vs Commissioner of CGST, Mumbai East

Facts –

• The Appellant, Idex India Pvt. Ltd, filed five refund claims under notification no. 27/2012-CE(NT) for the services, viz. Marketing and Promotion Services Engineering Support Services to the distributors/customers and Accounting & Management Reporting Services during the period April, 2015 to June, 2016, provided to its overseas holding company and subsidiaries. 
• All the five refund claims were rejected on the ground that the services provided by the appellants to their clients cannot be treated as export of service as provided under Rule 6A of the Service Tax Rules.

Issue – 

• whether the appellants are eligible for the refund of unutilised credit under Rule 5 ibid read with Notification No. 27/2012-CE(NT) dated 18.06.2012?

Order – 

• The Tribunal observed that from the agreement it is clear that the Appellant is an independent contractor and not an agent or representative or to be more precise an intermediary. They are providing the service of marketing and market research to the overseas recipient of service. The services are provided on principal-to-principal basis and consideration is also decided, the cost-plus mark up.
• The after-sales support service or Engineering Support service are services which the appellant is doing in respect of providing technical parameters of the products, design and it in no way require the goods to be made physically available to the appellant i.e., service provider, therefore, for these services also place of provision has to be determined in terms of Rule 3 ibid and not under Rule 4.
• Therefore, the services provided by the appellant to its overseas entities clearly qualify to be export and they are eligible for refund.