The Rajasthan High Court, Jaipur bench while ordering the IGST refund held that services related to overseas student placement qualify as “export of services” and not “intermediary services.”
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice K.R. Shriram and Justice Maneesh Sharma observed that to qualify as “intermediary,” there must be a triangular arrangement involving three parties. In this case, the arrangement was strictly bilateral between the Indian entity and its overseas principal. The Indian service provider had no role or authority in the final admission process, which was solely controlled by the foreign principal.
The Petitioner/assessee is a subsidiary of IDP Education Ltd., a publicly listed Australian Company (IDP Australia). IDP Australia has entered into agreements with various Foreign Universities, inter alia, to assist aspiring students with enrolment with these Foreign Universities. IDP Australia is paid certain percentage of the student’s fee as consideration, for providing such services to Foreign Universities.
To meet its obligation towards the Foreign Universities, IDP Australia has further entered into a separate service agreement with petitioner, a copy of which is exhibited at page 123 of Writ Petition No. 9933/2024.
Under the agreement, petitioner provides services with regard to student’s placement, providing information and guidance of courses, qualification requirement, counseling, enrollment services etc., to the students aspiring to join Foreign Universities. As per the agreement, IDP Australia remains the ultimate authority for finalizing of the admission process. A certain percentage (77%) of the application processing fee received by IDP Australia is paid to petitioner as consideration for the services rendered by it to IDP Australia.
The Original as well as the Appellate Authority held a view that petitioner’s services qualify as intermediary, and therefore, the place of its supply would be the location of petitioner, that is in India and hence denied export status and consequently denied refund of IGST claimed by petitioner. In addition to other grounds justifying invocation of writ remedy such as judicial indiscipline, due to absence of GST Tribunal Petitioner has moved to High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
The issue raised was whether the services supplied by petitioner qualifies as “intermediary” as alleged by the Department or do they qualify as “export” as the place of provision of services being outside taxable territory.
Allowing the petitions, the court held that the services provided were exports and directed the adjudicating authority to process the refund claims within four weeks along with applicable interest.
It rejected the government’s argument that tax-inclusive clauses in the agreement disqualified the service provider from claiming zero-rated benefits.
Case Details
Case Title: Idp Education India Pvt. Ltd. Versus UOI
Case No.: D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 9933/2024
Date: 04/09/2025
Counsel For Petitioner: Prasad Pranjape
Counsel For Respondent: Sandeep Pathak
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