Challenge to Payment of IGST in Imports under Advance Authorization (AA) – HC rules in favor of revenue
Case of Vedanta Ltd Vs UoI
Writ Petition was filed by the Petitioner seeking inter-alia—
- That the conditions S.No. 2(c) of Notification No 79/2017-Customs dated 13th October, 2017 is inter alia arbitrary, unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and quash the same.
- that paragraph 1 of Notification No 33/2015-20 dated 13th October, 2017 is inter alia arbitrary, unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and quash the same.
- Appropriate directions to the respondents to allow the petitioner to import without payment of Integrated Tax under the Advance Authorization licences which were issued to them without enforcing the restrictive "Pre-Import" condition under S. No. 2(c) of Notification No 79/2017-Customs dated 13th October, 2017 and Notification No 33/2015-20 dated 13th October, 2017.
The Hon’ble High Court dismissed the Writ Petition and held as under:
By not allowing exemption of IGST at the time of import, no benefit in the AA scheme is altered by the Government - choice of policy is for the decision maker, in this case the Government, to make and not for the Court - It is not open for the petitioner to chose one scheme and insist the government to modify that scheme to its convenience - It has not been established before this court that the decision suffers from perversity, irrationality or arbitrariness. |