TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (8) TMI 1639
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....lhi, for construction of New Supreme Court Building at Port Louis, Mauritius and the said contract was awarded to the petitioner vide letter dated 14.11.2017. Subsequently, they had entered into a formal agreement on 06.12.2017. 2.3 In terms of the aforesaid letter of award, the petitioner had deposited 10% of the contract value, i.e., USD 24,257,196,99/-, by way of Demand Draft No.319771 dated 10.09.2017. Thereafter, on 01.12.2017, they had established a Foreign Branch Office (FBO) in Mauritius to execute the project. 2.4 The petitioner company had obtained corporate and business registration from the Government of Mauritius on 04.12.2017 and they had also registered under the Mauritius Value Added Tax Act on 12.12.2017. Subsequently, they had commenced the execution of the project, i.e., construction of New Supreme Court Building at Mauritius and completed the same during the month of October, 2020. 2.5 All the project-related invoices were raised in USD by the FBO of the petitioner upon the Mauritius branch of NBCC, with payments and accounting handled exclusively in Mauritius. The FBO of the petitioner had also filed the statutory Corporate filings under the Mauritius ....
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....t that the bank account was maintained and the entire transactions were also carried out at Mauritius only. The payment was also not made in INR, but in USD. However, without considering all these aspects, the impugned show cause notice has been issued by the 1st respondent without any jurisdiction. Hence, he requests this Court to quash the said show cause notice. 3. Respondents' submission: 3.1 Per contra, the learned Senior Standing counsel and the learned Senior Panel counsel appearing for the respondents would submit that in this case, the agreement was entered into between the Indian Entities, where both the supplier and the recipient are located within India. 3.2 Further, he would submit that though the bank accounts were opened at Mauritius for execution of project, in the payment terms, it has been mentioned that the branch office may receive the amount, which is not a mandatory condition. 3.3 He would also contend that the branch offices were established only for the purpose of better monitoring and execution of the project and no separate agreement was executed between the petitioner and their FBO. The petitioner's FBO had procured materials for the p....
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....7. Subsequently, they had entered into a formal agreement on 06.12.2017. 6. In terms of the aforesaid letter of award, the petitioner had deposited 10% of the contract value, i.e., USD 24,257,196,99/-, by way of Demand Draft No.319771 dated 10.09.2017. Thereafter, on 01.12.2017, they had established a Foreign Branch Office (FBO) in Mauritius to execute the project. Subsequently, the petitioner company had obtained corporate and business registration from Government of Mauritius on 04.12.2017 and they had also registered under the Mauritius Value Added Tax Act on 12.12.2017. Thereafter, the petitioner had completed the construction of new Supreme Court building at Mauritius during the month of October, 2020. 7. According to the petitioner, all the invoices, pertaining to the project, were raised in USD by the petitioner's FBO upon the Mauritius branch of NBCC, with payments and accounting handled exclusively in Mauritius. The petitioner's FBO had also filed the statutory Corporate filings under the Mauritius Companies Act during the period of the aforesaid project. 8. Under these circumstances, the 1st respondent had conducted an investigation at the petitioner'....
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.... unless and otherwise the reply is filed by the petitioner, the respondent will not be in a position to know or decide about the nature of transaction. Further, when a show cause notice was issued, it is the bounded duty of an Assessee to explain their case, so as to enable the Department to understand the same. In the present case, the respondent was not satisfied with the reply filed by the petitioner for DRC-01A and thus, at this stage, the respondent will not have any opportunity to understand the nature of transaction. Therefore, as stated above, if any reply is filed by the petitioner for the impugned show cause notice, the respondent is bound to deal with the same. Thereafter, if the petitioner is aggrieved over the decision arrived at by the respondent, they can very well challenge the same in the manner known to law. 11. Further, it was contended by the petitioner that both the service provider/petitioner and the recipient/NBCC were registered at Mauritius, i.e., outside India to execute a project therein, for which, the bank account was maintained and all the transactions were also carried out at Mauritius, i.e., outside India. When such being the case, without any ter....