The main legal point established in the judgment is that the petitioner's services did not qualify as 'Intermediary Services' and that the place of supply of services was not in India as per the relevant provisions of the IGST Act.

JUDGMENT

Vibhu Bakhru, J. The petitioner has filed the present petitions impugning the orders passed by the Appellate Authority (respondent no.2) rejecting the appeals preferred by the petitioner against the orders passed by the Adjudicating Authority (respondent no.1).

2. The principal issue involved in these petitions are common. The controversy, essentially, relates to whether the services rendered by the petitioner to I Squared Asia Advisors Pte. Ltd., a company having its principal place of the business in Singapore (hereafter referred to as `I Squared') in terms of the Amended Support Service Agreement dated 06.06.2015 (hereafter `the Agreement') constitutes export of services. The petitioner claims that the services rendered by it are export of services because I Squared, the service recipient, is located overseas. However, the respondent authorities have held, on varying grounds, that services provided by the petitioner do not qualify as `export of services' as the place of supply of services is in India.

Factual Context

3. The petitioner is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013. It is engaged in the business of rendering investment advisory services related to the investment by non-resident group companies in the target companies in India, which are engaged in the transportation sector. The petitioner and I Squared belong to the same group of companies. The petitioner had entered into a Support Service Agreement on 30.05.2015 with I Squared. The scope of services to be provided under the said agreement were subsequently altered, therefore, the said agreement was terminated and the parties (the petitioner and I Squared) entered into the Amended Support Service Agreement on 06.06.2015 (the Agreement). In terms of the Agreement, the petitioner agreed to provide Advisory Support Services as mentioned in the Agreement, the parties agreed that the petitioner would be remunerated at an arm's length price to be determined on cost-plus markup basis.

4. The services rendered by the petitioner were accepted as `export of services' by the Revenue under the Finance Act, 1994 (Pre-GST Regime) and the Input Tax Credit (hereafter `ITC') was refunded to the petitioner as claimed.

5. The petitioner filed its applications for refund of unutilized ITC for the financial years 2018-19 to 2020-21, which were rejected. The claims are subject matter of the present petitions.

Proceedings for the Financial Year 2018-19, subject matter of the W.P.(C) 14461/2022

6. The petitioner filed an application on 13.07.2020 seeking refund of unutilized ITC on export of services amounting to Rs.26,52,799/- relating to the tax period April 2018 to March 2019 under Section 54 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (hereafter `the CGST Act').

7. The Adjudicating Authority issued a show cause notice dated 18.07.2020 proposing to reject the petitioner's claim for refund for the following reasons:

"i. Place of provision appear to be in India;

ii. Refund claims in respect of remittances received on or before 13.07.2018 is time barred;

iii. Difference in the value of supply as reflected in GSTR-1, GSTR-3B vis a vis RFD-01 and remittances received during 2018-19; and

iv. Refund claimed in respect of capital goods and construction activities, repair and maintenance, rent-a-cab etc. not admissible under Section 17(5) of the CGST Act."

8. The petitioner responded to the said show cause notice contesting the reasons for proposing rejection of its claim. Insofar as the place of supply of services is concerned, the petitioner responded as under:

"In this respect, we would like to reiterate that the Company is engaged in the provision of Management Consultancy services in the nature of Investment Advisory and Marketing Survey and Advisory services to entities located outside India. The Company provides update on market information, market trends and businesses, legal and regulation information/environment in India to entities outside India. Its servi