The Orissa High Court directed the GST department to refund Service Tax Recovered in excess of the amount approved by the resolution plan.
The Petitioner, M/s. Jagat Janani Services is a registered partnership firm that is registered under the Finance Act of, 1994 and after coming into force of the Odisha GST / Central GST Act of, 2017 it has also obtained GST registration under the said statute. It is stated that the Petitioner was raising invoices from time to time charging service tax prior to 1st July, 2017 and GST after that date for various services rendered by it.
It is stated that against various services against which invoices were raised by the Petitioner for the period January to December, 2017 has not paid Rs.21,42,70,161/-. It is stated that Opposite Party had availed of the input tax credit in respect of the above sum in the input credit ledger maintained by it. It has now been clarified in the counter affidavit filed by the Opposite Party that this entry of ITC has been reversed in the ledger.
The case of the Petitioner is that it has already paid towards service tax Rs.1,41,12,429.94 and towards GST Rs.1,92,66,932/- for the aforementioned period January to December 2017. It accordingly submits that there has to be a pro-rata reduction of the liability since it is to get only 20.5% of the outstanding amount, which works out to Rs.3,71,87,750/- and a tax payable works out approximately to Rs.45 lakhs. The Petitioner accordingly has calculated the excess tax paid as Rs.2.16 crores approximately and claims this is refund from Opposite Party No.3. In the counter affidavit by Opposite Party Nos.5 and 7 it is clarified that the service tax amount that has been paid is Rs.1,41,12,429.94 and the credit taken in this regard has now been reversed.
The division bench is headed by Chief Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar and Justice B.P. Routray directed the respondent to issue, calculate and refund to the Petitioner the excess service tax paid by it by acknowledging that the Petitioner is entitled to receive only 20.5% of the admitted claim amount which works out to Rs.3,71,87,750/-. The excess service tax so calculated will be refunded to the Petitioner in accordance with the extant rules within a period of eight weeks.
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