High Court directs Commerce ministry to refund CST to Wipro

The High Court of Karnataka has directed the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and others to refund central sales tax (CST) paid by Wipro GE Healthcare Pvt Ltd on purchase of certain medical equipment through inter-state trade and commerce.

Hearing the petition filed by Wipro, Justice Vineet Kothari granted three months’ time to the authorities to refund the CST already paid.

Wipro had moved the court for reimbursement of the amount paid under provisions in the relevant foreign trade policy. However, they were denied reimbursement by authorities. The judge, in the order, said there is no justifiable reason for the authority to deny such benefit of reimbursement to the company merely because the goods in question are purchased from a unit situated in The Export Oriented Units/Special Economic Zone/Electronic Hardware Technology Park and Software Technology Parks of India specified zones.

“Irrespective of the location of the manufacturing units selling such products to Wipro in the course of inter-state trade and charging CST, the goods continue to be the 'goods manufactured in India', which is the requirement in the foreign trade policy for entitling Wipro to claim such a reimbursement of CST," the court said.

The court also noted that in the foreign policy for 2015-2020, the anomaly and discrimination contained in the 2009-14 policy has been removed through a clarification and the benefit can be applied to previous years as well.