Lack of jurisdictional facts renders a show-cause notice under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act invalid when there is no demonstration of wilful suppression of GST liability.

ORAL ORDER

In this petition, petitioner seeks for the following reliefs:-

“a) Issue a writ of certiorari or writ in the nature of certiorari or any other appropriate writ, direction or order quashing the Show-cause Notice dated 12.02.2024 bearing No. 007/2024(F. No. DGGI/INT/INTL/347/2020-Gr T)Vide Annexure-A issued by Respondent No. 2 under Section 74 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 as being issued Illegally and without jurisdiction;

b) Issue a writ of declaration or any other writ, order or direction quashing Notification No. 2/2017 Central Tax dated 19.06.2017 read with Corrigendum dated 29.07.2019 vide Annexure-B being issued without jurisdiction by the Respondent No. 1 and for being ultra-vires sections 2(91), 3 and 5 of the CGST Act:

c) Issue a writ of declaration or any other writ, order or direction quashing Notification No. 14/2017 Central Tax dated 01.07.2017 read with Corrigendum dated 29.07.2019 for being issued without jurisdiction by Respondent No. 1 (vide Annexure-C) and for being ultra-vires section 2(91) read with 3 and 5 of the CGST Act:

d) Issue a writ of declaration or any other writ, order or direction quashing Notification No. 2/2022 Central Tax dated 11.03.2022 as being ultra vires section 2(91) read with 3 and 5 of the CGST Act issued by the Respondent No. 1 vide Annexure-B:

e) Issue a writ of declaration or any other writ, order or direction quashing Circular No. 3/3/2017-GST dated 05.07.2017 (Vide Annexure-D) issued by the Respondent No. 4 for being issued without the authority of law for being ultra-vires Section 2 (91) of the CGST Act;

f) In the alternative, if Impugned Show-cause Notice dated 12.02.2024 (vide Annexure - A) is treated to be issued under Section 73 of the CGST Act, issue a writ of declaration or any other writ, order or direction quashing Notification No. 09/2023- Central Tax dated 31.03.2023 (Vide Annexure-E) issued by Respondent No.1 and Notification No. (06/2023) FD 20 CSL 2023 dated 06.04.2023 (Vide Annexure-F) issued by Respondent No.6. as being issued illegally and without jurisdiction;

g) for any such consequential and other reliefs as the nature and circumstances of the case may require.”

2. The brief facts giving rise to the present petition as contended by the petitioner are as under:-

The petitioner which is duly registered under the GST Act claims to be a compliant tax payer who regularly files and pays GST every month. The petitioner has a division “Pearson Vue” which is engaged in providing computer based test administration solutions and pursuant to its contract with GMAC, USA, the petitioner conduct GMAT on behalf of GMAC for candidates in India. It is contended that on 28.07.2004, petitioner entered into a contract with human scorers through their vendor ACT Inc., to ensure that appropriate human competency and knowledge is brought to bear while carrying out human scoring for GMAT tests.

2.1 It is contended that subsequent to the GST regime coming into force in India on 01.07.2017, the petitioner filed an application dated 07.01.2020 before the Authority in Advance Rulings (AAR) seeking a Ruling on whether the services engaged by it would come under the ambit of online Information Data Base Access and Retrieval Services (OIDAR services) under GST Laws. By original order dated 22.05.2020, the AAR held in favour of the petitioner that while Type – II tests of the petitioner would come within the ambit of OIDAR services, but Type – III tests are outside the purview of OIDAR services, since it involved more than minimum human intervention.

2.2 Aggrieved by the aforesaid order dated