Assessee entitled to claim refund of ST paid belatedly under RCM after implementation of GST: CESTAT

Case details: NSSL (P.) Ltd. v. Commissioner of Central Excise, CGST & CE, Nagpur - [2021] 130 taxmann.com 55 (Mumbai - CESTAT)

Judiciary and Counsel Details

• • S.K. Mohanty, Judicial Member
  • P.V. Sadavarte, Adv. for the Appellant.
  • Dilip Shinde, Supdt. (AR) for the Respondent.

Facts of the Case

The appellant had availed the services namely, GTA, Manpower Supply Agency, legal services, security agency services etc., for its business requirement and was liable to discharge the service tax liability under Reverse Charge Mechanism(RCM). However, it did not discharge the service tax liability and paid the same into the central government account belatedly. The Finance Act, 1994 was repealed and replaced with the GST Act in 2017 and as a consequence, the appellant had filed refund application in 2018, claiming refund of service tax paid by it under RCM.

The refund applications filed by the appellants were returned by the Jurisdictional service tax authorities on the ground that input tax credit can only be claimed under the GST Act, 2017 and not otherwise. The appellant had preferred appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals). The appeal filed by the appellant was rejected and it preferred appeal before the Tribunal.

CESTAT Held

The Honorable Tribunal observed that as per Section 142(3) of GST Act, an assessee can file the application, claiming refund of the amount of CENVAT credit after the appointed day and that the said application shall be disposed of by the authorities in accordance with the erstwhile statute. Therefore, the refund claim filed by the appellant would be entitled to be taken into consideration and appeal would be allowed.