TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (3) TMI 1373
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....n rejected on the ground that the Group Medical Insurance and Personal Accident Insurance of employees and their family dependents are not included in the list of input services approved by Unit approval Committee (UAC) of the Development Commissioner. Further, the Commissioner observed that the 'General Insurance Business' services which have been approved by the Development Commissioner do not include above insurances claimed by the appellant as a refund, accordingly, same has been rejected. Aggrieved by this order, the appellant is in appeal before us. 2. The Learned Counsel submits that the appellant is a SEZ unit and primarily engaged in exporting Information Technology (IT) enabled services. During the period in question, the appellant received Group Insurance and Personal Accident Insurance, on which service tax was paid to the service provider, for which they claimed refund. It is submitted that Notification No. 12/2013-ST dated 01.07.2013 does not require a service to be qualified as 'input service' to claim refund because it is not governed by Cenvat Credit Rules. The only mandate as per the said Notification is that it should be used for the authorisation of the SEZ u....
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....it or the Developer shall get an approval by the Approval Committee of the list of the services as are required for the authorised operations (referred to as the 'specified services' elsewhere in the notification) on which the SEZ Unit or Developer wish to claim exemption from service tax. (II) The ab initio exemption on the specified services received by the SEZ Unit or the Developer and used exclusively for the authorised operation shall be allowed subject to the following procedure and conditions, namely :- (a) the SEZ Unit or the Developer shall furnish a declaration in Form A-1, verified by the Specified Officer of the SEZ, along with the list of specified services in terms of condition (I); (b) on the basis of declaration made in Form A-1, an authorisation shall be issued by the jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise or Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise, as the case may be to the SEZ Unit or the Developer, in Form A-2; (c) the SEZ Unit or the Developer shall provide a copy of said authorisation to the provider of specified services. On the basis of the said authorisation, the service provider shall provide the specified....
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....claimed, including the service tax payable thereon shall have been paid to the person liable to pay the service tax thereon, or as the case may be, the amount of service tax payable under reverse charge shall have been paid under the provisions of the said Act; (e) the claim for refund shall be filed within one year from the end of the month in which actual payment of service tax was made by such Developer or SEZ Unit to the registered service provider or such extended period as the Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise or the Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise, as the case may be, shall permit; (f) the SEZ Unit or the Developer shall submit only one claim of refund under this notification for every quarter : Explanation. - For the purposes of this notification "quarter" means a period of three consecutive months with the first quarter beginning from 1st April of every year, second quarter from 1st July, third quarter from 1st October and fourth quarter from 1st January of every year. (g) the SEZ Unit or the Developer who is not so registered under the provisions referred to in clause (c), shall, before filing a claim for refund under this ....
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....not include the specific insurance claimed by the appellant is absolutely irrelevant, in as much as the insurance is for the employees of the appellant. Moreover, the question of referring to the Cenvat Credit Rules for the admissibility of the refund is also misplaced since the refund is based only on the ground that specified services on which tax is discharged is used in the authorised operations which admittedly the appellant has satisfied. 5. In a similar set of facts, in the case of Lowe's Services India Pvt. Ltd. vs. Commissioner of Central Tax, Bangalore North West Commissionerate, Bengaluru: 2021 (52) G.S.T.L. 70 (Tri. - Bang.) dated 05.03.2021 observed as follows: "7. ................ Further I find that in the show cause notice as well as in Order-in-Original, the refund has been rejected only on the ground that the said insurance services have not been approved by the Approval Committee of the SEZ and hence the appellants are not entitled to the refund. Further I find that the Commissioner (Appeals) in the impugned order has accepted the fact that approval is merely a procedural formality and by relying upon the decision of the Tribunal in the appellant's ow....