The rejection of refund claims without providing an opportunity of being heard was a violation of the proviso to sub-rule (3) of rule 92 of the CGST Rules and the principles of natural justice, rendering the impugned orders void.

JUDGMENT

Ujjal Bhuyan, J. - Heard Mr. Prakash Shah, learned counsel for the petitioner and Ms. Jyoti Chavan, learned AGP for the respondents-State.

2. In this petition filed under Articles 226 / 227 of the Constitution of India, petitioner has assailed legality and correctness of five identical orders all dated 26.06.2020 passed by respondent No.4 for five quarters covering the period from April, 2018 to June, 2019 rejecting the refund claims made by the petitioner in respect of unutilized input tax credit.

3. Petitioner is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. It is engaged in the business of providing information technology and information technology enabled services to customers located outside India. It has its registered office at Andheri (East), Mumbai.

4. Under the erstwhile service tax regime, petitioner was registered with the service tax department. With effect from 01.07.2017, goods and services tax (GST) regime came into effect with the introduction of Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and the corresponding Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 in so far State of Maharashtra is concerned. The erstwhile Central Excise Act, 1944 and Chapter V of the Finance Act, 1994 dealing with service tax stood subsumed in the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. All the assessees under the erstwhile two enactments dealing with central excise and service tax were required to migrate to the GST regime in terms of section 139(1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (briefly 'the CGST Act' hereinafter).

5. In compliance thereto petitioner migrated from service tax registration to GST registration and was allotted GST identification number in the State of Maharashtra.

6. It is stated that petitioner had entered into a master agreement dated 03.05.2004 with Bank of America National Association (for short 'BANA' hereinafter), a national banking association incorporated under the laws of United States of America. The agreement was entered into to provide for information technology and information technology enabled services by the petitioner to BANA. Details of the support services provided by the petitioner to BANA have been mentioned in the writ petition.

7. In order to provide the mentioned output services, petitioner received various input services and availed the credit of tax paid thereon. According to the petitioner, the services provided by it to BANA qualifies as "export of service" as well as "zero-rated supply" in terms of sections 2(6) and 16 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 ('IGST Act' for short).

8. Petitioner exported the said services without payment of tax and filed related applications in the prescribed format on various dates claiming refund of unutilized input tax credit under section 16(3) of the IGST Act read with section 54 of the CGST Act and Rule 89 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 (briefly 'CGST Rules' hereinafter). Petitioner filed five refund applications covering five different periods claiming total refund of Rs.9,58,13,338.00. Details of the refund applications have been provided in the writ petition which are extracted hereunder:-

Sr. No. Period Application Reference No. & Date Amount 1. April 2018 to June 2018 AA271219120611I 27.12.2019 12,19,054 2. July 2018 to September 2018 AA270120087932A 21.01.2020 8,94,21,238 3. October 2018 to December 2018 AA270120116912Q 27.01.2020 18,99,834 4. January 2019 to March 2019 AA270220067090S 17.02.2020 22,58,739 5. April 2019 to June 2019 AA270220076623G 19.02.2020 10,14,473 Total 9,58,13,338

9. As a sequel to the aforesaid refund applications, five identical show cause notices were issued to the petitioner by respondent No.4; three show cause notices were dated 26.02.2020 and two dated 09.03.2020. It was alleged in the show cause notices that the tax payer i.e., the petitioner was facilitating supply of services between two persons on account of Bank of America. Thus, the tax payer was an interm