Page 97 - GSTL_20th August 2020_Vol 39_Part 3

2020 ] IN RE : MASTER MINDS 311
Trutuf Safety Glass Industries v. Commissioner of Sales Tax
— 2007 (215) E.L.T. 14 (S.C.) — Referred ................................................................................. [Para 4.12]
DEPARTMENTAL CLARIFICATIONS CITED
C.B.I. & C. Circular No. 32/06/2018-GST, dated 12-2-2018 .................................................... [Paras 5.2, 8.8]
C.B.I. & C. Circular No. 85/04/2019-GST, dated 1-1-2019 .................................................... [Paras 4.32, 8.7]
REPRESENTED BY : Shri Y. Sreenivasa Reddy, Advocate, for the Assessee.
[Order]. - The present application has been filed u/s. 97 of the Central
Goods & Services Tax Act, 2017 and AP Goods & Services Tax Act, 2017 (herein-
after referred to CGST Act and APGST Act respectively) by M/s. Master Minds,
Brodipet, Guntur (hereinafter referred to as ‘applicant’), not registered under the
Goods & Services Tax Act, 2017.
2. The provisions of the CGST Act and APGST Act are identical, except
for certain provisions. Therefore, unless a specific mention of the dissimilar pro-
vision is made, a reference to the CGST Act would also mean a reference to the
same provision under the APGST Act. Further, henceforth, for the purposes of
this Advance Ruling, a reference to such a similar provision under the CGST or
APGST Act would be mentioned as being under the GST Act.
3. Brief facts of the case :
3.1 The applicant herein is a proprietary firm and a leading educational
institution providing coaching to students for Chartered Accountancy certificate
(‘CA’); Cost and Works Accountancy Certificate (‘ICWA’) and Intermediate Cer-
tificate. The coaching provided by the applicant enables the students to appear
for the examinations conducted by the respective statutory bodies i.e., Interme-
diate (Higher Secondary Education), Chartered Accountancy Course (consisting
of three levels i.e. CA Foundation Course (earlier referred as ‘CPT’), CA-
Intermediate (earlier referred as ‘IPCC’) Course and CA-Final Course), and Cost
Management Accountancy (Consisting of three levels i.e. CMA Foundation
Course, CMA-Intermediate Course and CMA-Final Course) and to obtain the
necessary qualifications. The applicant’s registration with Service tax department
was migrated to GST under GST Act w.e.f. 1-7-2017. However, on the request of
the applicant on the ground that the educational services provided by the appli-
cant were exempted under GST vide Entry No. 66 of Notification No. 12/2017-
Central Tax, dated 28-6-2017, the department approved cancellation of Migrated
Registration.
3.2 The applicant was initially registered with the service tax depart-
ment as a service provider under the category of ‘Commercial Training or Coach-
ing Centre’ and was paying service tax. However, when exemption was provid-
ed to the services of a Commercial Training or Coaching centre by way of coach-
ing that leads to any certificate recognized by law under Notification No.
33/2011-S.T., dated 25-4-2011, he stopped payment of service tax on due intima-
tion to the service tax department.
3.3 The service tax department issued show cause notices demanding
service tax on the fee collected by the applicant and certain demands were
dropped and some confirmed with the reasons detailed below, as can be seen
from the copies of the show cause notices and orders submitted by the applicant
along with his application :
(a) The demands in respect of the coaching provided for obtaining cer-
tificates of CA-Final, CA-Inter (IPCC) and ICWA Final are not sus-
tainable since the coaching provided for these courses lead to grant
GST LAW TIMES  20th August 2020  97