Section 54 of the CGST Act, 2017 --- Refund —- The petitioner, an Indian Branch Office of M/s Ernst & Young Limited challenged an order-in-appeal dated 15.03.2022, whereby respective appeals preferred against OIO dated 25.01.2020, 09.12.2020 and 21.05.2021, were rejected. The Adjudicating Authority rejected its refund applications for ITC in respect of export of services, on the premise that the petitioner is an ‘intermediary’ and thus, the place of services is located in India, where the petitioner’s place of business is located and not where recipient of services is located. The petitioner had provided various professional services to overseas EY Entities in terms of the agreements entered into between E&Y Limited and the respective overseas EY Entities. The invoices raised described the nature of services for the invoiced amount as “Professional Fees for Services”. The court observed that definition of intermediary makes it amply clear that it merely “arranges or facilitates” supply of goods or services or both between two or more persons. Thus, it is obvious that a person who supplies the goods or services is not an intermediary. The petitioner had not arranged the said supply from any third party. The services rendered by the petitioner to EY Entities, prior to roll out of the GST regime, was considered as ‘export of services’. In terms of Section 13(8) of the IGST Act, the place of supply of certain services would be the location of the supplier of the services. The place of supply of intermediary services is the location of the supplier of services. But the Services rendered by the petitioner are not as an intermediary and therefore, the place of supply of the Services rendered by the petitioner to overseas entities is required to be determined on basis of the location of the recipient of the Services. Since the recipient of the Services is outside India, the professional services rendered by the petitioner would fall within the scope of definition of ‘export of services’ as defined under Section 2(6) of the IGST Act.

Held that:- The Hon’ble Court set aside the impugned order as well as the impugned orders-in-original. The Adjudicating Authority is directed to process the petitioner’s refund application as expeditiously as possible.