JUDGMENT :

MEHTA, J.

1. The petitioner herein has approached this Court through this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India with the following prayers:

“a. issue an appropriate writ, order, or direction in the nature of Certiorari or any other writ, order or direction of like nature, calling for record of the Petitioner’s case leading to passing of the Impugned Refund rejection Order in Form RFD 06 dated 05.01.2021 (Annexure-1) and after examining its legality and propriety, quash the Impugned Refund rejection Order in FORM RFD 06 dated 05.01.2021 (Annexure-2) as being arbitrary, illegal and constitutionally invalid;

b. issue an appropriate writ, order, or direction in nature of Certiorari or any other writ, order or direction of like nature, to call for, examine the record in relation to the Impugned Circular bearing No.135/05/2020-GST F.No.CBEC-20/01/06/2019-GST dated 31.03.2020 (Annexure-2) and quash Para 3 of it to the extent it seeks to deny refund in cases where input and output supplies are same as being arbitrary, violative of Article 14, and Article 300A of the Constitution of India and ultra vires Section 54 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017;

c. Writ of Mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the Respondent No.2 and 3 [Deputy Commissioner, State Tax] to grant refund of accumulated Input Tax Credit amounting to Rs. 27,02,26,876 as claimed by the Petitioner under FORM-GST-RFD-01 dated 29.09.2020;”

2. Brief facts relevant and essential for disposal of the writ petition are noted herein below:

The petitioner operating in the State of Rajasthan through its project Office at Unit No.203, Reliable Tech Park, MIDC, Airoli, Navi Mumbai, entered into a development contract with the company Vedanta Limited which has been granted exclusive rights to carry out petroleum operations in Rajasthan Block RJ-ON-90/1 by the Government of India. For this purpose, a Production Sharing Contract was executed between Vedanta and the Central Government. In order to procure essential goods, materials and/or equipment required for carrying out the petroleum exploration and production operations as prescribed in the Production Sharing Contract, Vedanta entered into a sub contract dated 11.12.2018 with the petitioner for supply of these articles. As per terms of contract, the petitioner was required to procure the specified goods, material and/or equipment from India and abroad for onward dispatch to its Customer i.e. Vedanta. For executing the aforementioned supply of goods, the petitioner obtained registration under the CGST/RGST Acts and claims to have been regularly filing returns and paying tax to the Central/ State Government. For the purpose of execution of the contract, the petitioner procured goods from authorised vendors at GST rates varying between 5% to 28%.

3. It is asserted by the petitioner that in order to reduce the burden of tax and the cascading effect and to give a boost to the oil and gas industry, the Central Government issued a Notification No.3/2017-CGST dated 28.06.2017 providing for an effective GST Rate of 5% on all supplies made for specified operations subject to certain conditions. To avail 5% concessional rate of GST under the said notification, a pre-requisite condition was stipulated i.e. to provide a certificate from the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas which clears the transfer of said goods. The essentiality certificate was issued bearing the name of the petitioner as the supplier and Vedanta as recipient. The petitioner, procured the goods by paying GST from 5% to 28% (Input Tax) and supplied the same to the Vedanta at the fixed GST rate of 5% (Output Tax) under the notification No.3/2017-Central Tax (Rate), dated 28.06.2017. It is claimed that Input Tax Credit available to the petitioner is much higher than its Output Tax Liability and as a consequence, after complete utilization of t