Case Details: Amazon Data Services India Pvt. Ltd. Versus Assistant Commissioner of CGST (2025) 31 Centax 112 (Del.)
Judiciary and Counsel Details
- Pratibha M. Singh & Rajneesh Kumar Gupta, JJ.
- S/Shri Balbir Singh, Sr. Adv., Ms Charanaya Lakshmi Kumaran, Yogendra Aldak, Karan Sachdev, Agrim Arora, Kunal Arora, Kunal Kapoor, Yatharth Tripathi & Ms Charu Trivedi, Advs. for the Petitioner.
- S/Shri Sanjay Kumar Chaddha, Sr. Adv. & Hemant Kumar, Adv. for the Respondent.
Facts of the Case
The petitioner rendered data hosting services to foreign affiliates and claimed refund on the ground that such services constituted export under the IGST Act, 2017. The Department rejected the refund claim, holding that the services did not qualify as export under the Export of Services Rules, 2017, and treated the petitioner as an ‘intermediary’ under Section 2(13) of the IGST Act, 2017. The assessee challenged the appellate order in a writ petition, relying on consistent findings by both the Appellate Authority and Adjudicating Authority in other proceedings which had treated identical services as export. The matter was accordingly placed before the Delhi High Court.
High Court Held
The Delhi High Court held that the supply of data hosting services by service providers located in India to cloud computing service providers located outside India would constitute export, as clarified in ‘Circular No. 232/26/2024-GST, dated 10-09-2024’. The Court noted that the Appellate Authority itself had passed various orders in favour of the assessee in respect of identical services, and that certain Orders-in-Original passed by the Adjudicating Authority, which also treated such services as export, had not been challenged in appeal. In view of this, the Court set aside the impugned appellate orders and directed reconsideration in light of the Appellate Authority’s own earlier rulings and the said Circular. The matter was remanded, reaffirming that data hosting services supplied to foreign recipients are to be treated as export, thereby strengthening legal consistency in GST refund adjudication for export services.
List of Circulars Cited
- Circular No. 232/26/2024-GST dated 10th September, 2024
