Place of supply— Section 13 of IGST Act— The present appeal has been filed against the Advance Ruling passed by the Authority for Advance Ruling under GST, Goa State.

The short issues for determination in this appeal are:-

(i) Whether the activity of technical testing services carried out by the appellant be treated as ‘zero rated supply’ of services in accordance with the provisions of Section 16 of the IGST Act, 2017, as claimed by the appellant or whether the same does not amount to ‘zero rated supply’ I ‘export of services’, as held by the lower Authority ?

(ii) Whether the appellant is liable to pay IGST on the said ‘supply of services’ as claimed by them or they are liable to pay the applicable CGST + SGST as ruled by the lower Authority ?

With regard to the first issue, it is seen that appellant’s query No.1 i.e, whether their activity of technical testing services carried out on samples/goods made available by service recipients are to be treated as ‘zero rated supply of services’ in terms of Section 16 of the IGST Act, 2017, has been answered by the lower Authority in the negative i.e, that these do not constitute ‘zero-rated supply of services’ i.e., export of services in terms of the said Section 16.

This authority find that the lower authority has duly considered and analysed the above definitions and statutory provisions and found that though the appellant satisfies the conditions (i), (ii), (iv) and (v) of the definition of ‘export of services’ vide Section 2(6) ibid., however the condition vide (iii) is not fulfilled by them. The Authority held that in terms of Section 13(3) the place of supply of service is in Goa, India, since in the given factual situation, the samples/goods on which the testing service is to be performed by the appellant were made available by the service recipients, which squarely fits into the situation specified under the said Section 13 (3) only. Consequently, the ‘place of supply of services’ has to be the location where this services are actually performed, which again admittedly is in Goa. And therefore that the services do not fall within ‘export of services’ vide Section 2(6) of the IGST Act, 2017.

As regards the second issue involved i.e., whether appellant is liable to pay IGST on the aforesaid supply of services, we find that since the supplier of service is in Goa, India and place of supply of service as determined under Section 13(3)(a) of the CGST Act, 2017 is also in Goa, India, the same falls under “Intra-State” supply of services as per Section 8(2) of the IGST Act, 2017 whereby the provisions under Section 7(5)(c) claimed by the appellant would not be applicable. Consequently, the appellant is liable to pay CGST and SGST on the aforesaid supply of service, as held by the lower authority.

Held that— The decision of the AAR Goa in the present case is consistent with and based on a fair, proper interpretation of the extend statutory provisions, and hence requires to be maintained as legal and proper. The appeal filed by the appellant is rejected.