Writ Petition Maintainability: constitutional writ jurisdiction permitted for limited review of employment-characterisation and GST applicability.

The article addresses whether a writ petition challenging a GST assessment is maintainable despite the statutory appellate remedy, and whether payments to international assignees under independent employment contracts attract GST or constitute employment income. It states that constitutional writ jurisdiction can be invoked for limited substantive consideration of the employment-characterisation and GST applicability questions, overruling the preliminary objection based on the availability of appeal for that purpose. The piece records a direction for a counter-affidavit, that the deposit made under protest will abide the petition outcome, and the residual demand remains in abeyance pending final disposal.

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Issues: (i) Whether the writ petition challenging the assessment order is maintainable despite the existence of a statutory remedy of appeal under Section 107 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, and whether the matter requires substantive consideration of the nature of the employment agreements and applicability of GST.

Analysis: The question required consideration of the interplay between the constitutional writ jurisdiction and the statutory appellate remedy under Section 107 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The petition raises issues of law regarding characterization of international assignees' remuneration-whether payments under independent contracts of employment fall within the scope of 'services by an employee to the employer' attractable to GST-or are to be treated as employment income accounted under Section 192 of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The Court noted that the matter involves interpretation of the Supreme Court judgment in C.C., C.E. & S.T.-Bangalore vs. Northern Operating Systems Pvt Ltd and that several High Courts have entertained writ petitions raising similar questions; accordingly the preliminary objection based on availability of statutory appeal could not be sustained for the limited purpose of examining these substantive questions.

Conclusion: The preliminary objection to maintainability based on the existence of the statutory appellate remedy under Section 107 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 is overruled for the limited purpose of deciding the substantive issues concerning the nature of the employment agreements and applicability of GST. A counter-affidavit was directed to be filed; until final disposal the deposit made under protest shall abide by the outcome of the petition and the residual demand pursuant to the impugned assessment order shall remain in abeyance.

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