The main legal point established in the judgment is that the ARA should not admit an application if there is a pending investigation, as per the proviso to Section 98(2) of the CGST/APGST Act.

ORDER :

The petitioner prays for writ of mandamus declaring the impugned order AAAR/AP/04(GST)2020, dated 28.09.2020, passed by the Appellate Authority for advance ruling as illegal, arbitrary and to set aside the same and pass further appropriate orders.

2. The petitioner’s case briefly is thus:-

(i) The petitioner is a proprietary concern and a leading educational institution providing coaching to students for obtaining educational qualifications viz., Chartered Accountancy Certificate (‘CA’), Cost and Works Accountancy Certificate (‘ICWA’) and their ilk. While so, the petitioner filed application for advance ruling vide Form GST ARA – 01 (as per Rule 104(1)) of CGST Act seeking ruling inter alia on the point whether the coaching/training provided by the applicant for students for the above courses conducted by it fall within the wider meaning of the term ‘education’ and in relation to education and other related aspects. The Advance Ruling Authority (herein after, ‘ARA’) after elaborate hearing passed its ruling vide order AAR No.08/AP/GST/2020, dated 05.03.2020, wherein the ARA held that the applicant was not eligible for the exemption under Entry No.66(a) of Notification No.12/2017-CT(Rate), dated 28.06.2017, as amended. It also gave rulings on the other related issues raised by the petitioner before it.

(ii) Aggrieved by the above rulings, the petitioner filed appeal before the appellate authority for advance ruling and after hearing, the appellate authority dismissed the appeal on 28.09.2020 by confirming the rulings made by the ARA. Aggrieved, the present writ petition is filed by the petitioner.

3. Heard the arguments of learned counsel for petitioner, Sri Y.Sreenivasa Reddy and Sri Suresh Kumar Routhu, learned Senior Standing Counsel for CBIC and learned Government Pleader for Commercial Tax representing for the respondents.

4. (a) The main plank of argument of learned counsel for petitioner is that even by the date of filing of application before ARA on 15.12.2020, the GST has already cancelled the registration under GST Act of the petitioner and further the Director General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (herein after, ‘DGGSTI’), Visakhapatnam, had called for certain documents and enquired about the payment of GST on the services provided by the petitioner and the petitioner had submitted the documents called for and also gave the statement submitting that there was no tax on the educational services submitted by him. The copies of summons dated 01.07.2019 and 11.09.2019 were issued to the applicant by the DGGSTI in that regard. Learned counsel would submit that all these facts were succinctly narrated by the petitioner in Para 11 of his application. It was also brought to the notice of ARA that show-cause notice was not issued and no docket proceedings were pending against the applicant by the date of its application. Learned counsel would strenuously argue that the above proceedings would indicate that the DGGSTI had already commenced investigation as against the petitioner even before he filed application before ARA and in that view, in the light of first proviso to sub-section (2) of section 98 of CGST/APGST Act, the ARA should not have admitted the application of the petitioner in view of the pendency of the proceedings. Learned counsel drew the attention of this Court to the word ‘any proceedings’ mentioned in the said proviso and argued that the said term comprehends within it the investigation also. As such, when the investigation proceedings are pending against the applicant, the application of such applicant shall not be entertained by the ARA in view of the embargo created in the aforesaid proviso. To buttress his arguments, learned counsel referred to Section 70 of CGST/APGST Act. Besides, he also relied upon the following citations:

(i) Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling, Karnataka v. M/s.Karnataka Co-operative Milk Producers Federation Limited, 2020 (3) TMI 73

(ii) Appellate Authority for Advance