ORAL ORDER

(PER : HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE N.V.ANJARIA)

Heard learned advocate Mr. Akshat Khare for the petitioner and learned advocate Mr. Priyank Lodha for respondents no.1, 2 and 3.

2. By invoking the writ jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, the petitioner has prayed to set aside the order-in-origin dated 30.04.2021 passed by respondent no.3-Deputy Commissioner, Central Tax, GST Division-II, Vadodara. It is also prayed to set aside the order-in-appeal dated 24.09.2021, which is passed by the appellate authority-Commissioner, GST & Central Excise (Appeals), respondent no.2 herein. Further direction is prayed for against the respondent department to refund the service tax paid in cash along with the applicable interest under the transitional provision of Central Goods & Service Tax as claimed by the petitioner.

3. The facts are to be noticed only for the purpose of having an idea of the controversy raised in the petition.

3.1 The petitioner M/s. GAIL (India) Ltd. holds service tax registration for providing taxable services under various categories. The petitioner appears to have entered into Gas Transmission Agreement dated 03.09.2010 with one M/s. Filatex India Ltd. for transporting natural gas from offtake point at Dahej to the terminal of the petitioner at the customer’s plant. Various invoices came to be raised subsequently by the petitioner GAIL to charge Rs.12,80,75,938/- to the customer. The petitioner stated that it paid service tax of Rs. 1,50,40,235.99 to the respondent department.

3.2 It was stated that thereafter, in one time settlement between the petitioner and the customer, the outstanding amount of invoices were reduced and credit note was also issued for the same. It is the case of the petitioner that under Rule 6(3) of the Service Tax Rules, the petitioner is entitled to claim credit of the differential service tax paid in advance.

3.3 When at subsequent point of time, the Goods and Service Tax came into force from 01.07.2017, transitional provisions were introduced under Chapter XX of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act for smooth transition of earlier claim of credits under the earlier law.

3.4 The claim of the petitioner is for refund of the amount as stated above.

4. The refund claim of the petitioner came to be rejected by the appellate authority and the respondent no.3 happens to be the first appellate authority.

5. While learned advocate for the petitioner raised various contentions on merits to assail the impugned order including on the aspect of applicability or otherwise of section 142(6)(a) of the Act, the Court does not find it necessary to go into all those contentions inasmuch as there is no gainsaying that the petitioner has alternative statutory remedy under section 35B of the Central Excise Act, 1994 read with section 86 in Chapter V of the Finance Act, 1994 read with section 174 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. Thereunder, the appeal is available to the appellate tribunal.

5.1 It is trite that when the statutory alternative remedy is available, High Court would be slow to entertain the petition directly to exercise the writ jurisdiction. The petitioner is required to exhaust the statutory alternative remedy before invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court.

6. The Court is of the view that the issues and aspects raised in the petition on merits with regard to the challenge to the impugned order and rejecting the refund claim of the petitioner could be better agitated before the appellate tribunal.

7. In the aforesaid view, while permitting the petitioner to approach the Tribunal, the present petition is dismissed on the said ground alone without expressing any opinion of the merits. Notice is discharged.