Classification of service— The present appeal has been filed against the Advance Ruling order. The Appellant is part of Worley Parsons Limited, which is a global engineering company providing project delivery and consulting services to the resources and energy sectors and other complex process industries.
Vedanta Limited has entered into separate agreements with the Appellant in relation to the two projects for supply of PMC services. The PMC services are customized and tailor made to suit the requirements of VL and further require extensive technical and sound expertise. As per the agreements, the Appellant is required to continuously review, monitor, manage and control all aspects of the execution of the Projects on behalf of VL to complete it with quality, on time and within the approved cost. The Appellant is appointed to manage the Project,, right from details to designing to commissioning and close out of Projects with VL.
In view of the above, the Appellant approached the MAAR seeking advance ruling on the following questions:
(i) Whether the services provided by the Appellant are classified under SI No. 24(ii) of heading 9986 of the Rate Notification as 'Support services to exploration, mining or drilling of petroleum crude or natural gas or both' under SAC 998621 and attracts GST @ 12% in terms of Si. No. 24(ii) of Rate Notification.
(ii) Alternatively, whether the services provided by the Appellant are classified under SI No. 21(ia) of heading 9983 of the Rate Notification as 'Other professional, technical and business services relating to exploration, mining or drilling of petroleum crude or natural gas or both' and attracts GST @ 12% in terms of SI. No. 21 (ia) of Rate Notification.
(iii) Further, if the subject services are not classifiable under the aforesaid entry, what would be the appropriate classification for the same and at what rate GST would be imposable?
The MAAR passed the order and held that the services provided by the Appellant are neither covered under S.I. No. 24(ii) nor under SI. No.21 (ia) of Rate Notification.
Held that— This authority uphold the MAAR Order wherein it has been held that the services provided by the Appellant are neither covered under Si. No. 24(ii) nor under SI. No. 21(ia) of the Rate Notification. As regards the classification of the impugned services, it is held that the impugned services of project management consultancy services provided the Appellant would merit classification under the SAC 998349 bearing description “Other technical and scientific services nowhere else classified, attracting GST at the rate of 18% (CGST @9%+SGST @9%).