The Hon’ble High Court of Bombay vide its order dated 04.07.2022 in the matter of Vodafone Idea Limited Vs. The Union of India through Secretary and Others in Writ Petition No. 3221 of 2021 with Writ Petition (L) No. 12860 of 2022, held that telecom services provided to the individual subscribers of Foreign Telecom Operator (FTO) by the petitioner in India would amount to export of services and not considered as a domestic supply.  Therefore, refund of the IGST paid on the provision of said telecom services would be allowed.

That Vodafone Idea Limited filed the writ petition No. 3221 of 2021 seeking directions to the respondent authorities to immediately implement the Order-in-appeal dated 18.08.2021 passed by the Joint Commissioner (Appeals – II), whereby refund of Rs. 1,02,74,14,843/- was granted to the petitioner.  And the revenue has filed the writ petition (L) no. 12860 of 2022 praying for quashing the said order dated 18.08.2021, whereby two appeals Nos. 257 of 2021 for the period May 2019 to June 2019 with respect to the refund amount of Rs. 50,30,92,587/- & Appeal No. 258 of 2021 for the period July 2019 to September 2019 for refund of Rs. 52,43,22,256/- were disposed of.

Facts: –

• That Vodafone Idea limited filed applications for refund of Integrated tax paid on export of services for the period April – 2019 to September – 2019 in Form RFD -01A as per the provisions of Section 54 of the CGST Act, 2017, and all relevant documents in this regard were also furnished.
• Subsequently deficiency memos were issued to Vodafone Idea limited calling for more document, which was duly complied by it through its letter dated 28.04.2021 and 18.05.2021.
• Thereafter, two show cause notices dated 06.2021 & 06.07.2021 were issued to Vodafone Idea Limited by the respondent authorities, to show cause as to why their refund claims should not be rejected for the reasons mentioned in the show cause notices.
• That Vodafone Idea Limited through its letter dated 29.06.2021 and 13.07.2021 duly replied to the aforesaid show cause notices. Later, by order dated 16.07.2021 & 19.07.2021, the refund claims filed by the Vodafone Idea Limited were rejected by the respondent authorities finding that the services provided was within the state of Maharashtra and cannot be considered as export of service.
• That aggrieved of those two orders, the Appellant filed appeals before the Joint Commissioner of CGST and CX (Appeals). The Joint Commissioner by a common order dated 18.08.2021, allowed both the appeals of Vodafone Idea Limited allowing refund of Rs. 1,02,74,14,843/- along with appropriate interest.  Being aggrieved of this order, the revenue has filed the present petition.

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