CESTAT Hyderabad held HAL's SU-30 MKI technology transfer from Russia's Rosoboronexport is not Scientific or Technical Consultancy Service under service tax.
Valkya Editorial··7 min
TribunalCustoms, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi
On 19 May 2022, a three-judge bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath struck down the levy of IGST on ocean freight in CIF imports under the Reverse Charge Mechanism — holding that an Indian importer who has already paid IGST on the composite supply of CIF-imported goods cannot be separately charged IGST on the ocean-freight component of the same supply. The judgment is doctrinally significant for a connected reason: the Bench held that recommendations of the GST Council have persuasive value and are not binding on the Union or State Legislatures. A digest of the holdings, the doctrinal architecture, and the refund consequences.
On 19 May 2022, a three-judge bench presided by Justice Uday Umesh Lalit — through a judgment authored by Justice S. Ravindra Bhat — held that the secondment of expatriate employees by overseas group entities of *Northern Operating Systems Pvt. Ltd.* constituted a taxable supply of manpower under the Finance Act 1994, attracting reverse-charge service tax. Substance, not the form of the secondment contract, was held to govern; the employment matrix — payroll, social security, the right of repatriation — remaining with the overseas entity was decisive. The Court denied the Revenue the extended period of limitation under *Section 73*. The judgment has since travelled into the GST era through a wave of *Section 74* notices and a moderating CBIC instruction.