Served From India Scheme eligibility turns on the operative policy text, not added brand-based restrictions.

Under the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-2009, SFIS benefits could not be denied to an eligible service provider by importing a condition that it be an Indian brand or a subsidiary of a foreign company, because the operative eligibility clause extended the benefit to listed service providers meeting the prescribed foreign exchange earning requirement. The policy's objective clause could not override the plain wording of the eligibility provision, and the later 2009-2014 policy could not be used to narrow rights under the earlier scheme. On that basis, the consequential rejection of refund of customs duty, which depended on the denied SFIS entitlement, was also unsustainable.

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Issues: (i) Whether the benefit of the Served From India Scheme under the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-2009 could be denied to an eligible service provider on the basis that it was not an Indian brand or subsidiary of a foreign company. (ii) Whether the rejection of refund of customs duty, based on such denial of SFIS benefit, was sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the benefit of the Served From India Scheme under the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-2009 could be denied to an eligible service provider on the basis that it was not an Indian brand or subsidiary of a foreign company.

Analysis: The relevant policy provision extended SFIS benefits to all service providers listed in the specified appendix, subject to the prescribed foreign exchange earning condition. The objective clause could not be used to import an additional disqualifying condition not found in the operative eligibility provision. An interpreter of the policy could not rewrite the scheme by substituting the narrower eligibility structure later adopted in the Foreign Trade Policy 2009-2014. In a fiscal benefit scheme, the plain language of the operative provision had to be given effect.

Conclusion: The denial of SFIS benefit on the ground that the respondent was not an Indian brand or was a foreign subsidiary was unsustainable and the respondent was entitled to the benefit under the Foreign Trade Policy 2004-2009.

Issue (ii): Whether the rejection of refund of customs duty, based on such denial of SFIS benefit, was sustainable.

Analysis: The refund claim rested on the respondent's entitlement to SFIS benefits under the earlier policy. Once the denial of that entitlement was held to be unlawful, the consequential rejection of refund could not stand. The later policy regime could not be applied to defeat a claim arising under the earlier policy.

Conclusion: The rejection of refund was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The appeals failed because the respondent satisfied the operative eligibility conditions for SFIS under the applicable policy, and the consequential refund denial was rightly set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: An authority interpreting a fiscal incentive scheme cannot read into the operative eligibility provision a restriction that is not expressed there, and the benefit must be granted where the claimant satisfies the plain terms of the applicable policy.

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