Sh. Ashok Kumar Singh Vs Lifeways Infrastate Pvt. Ltd. (NAA)
The only issue to be examined is as to whether there was any net benefit of ITC with the introduction of GST. The Authority finds that, the ITC, as a percentage of the turnover, that was available to the Respondent during the pre-GST period (April-2016 to June-2017) was 0.31%, whereas, during the post-GST period (July-2017 to September, 2019), it was 0.48%. This confirms that in the post-GST period, the Respondent has been benefited from additional ITC to the tune of 0.17% (0.48%40.31%) of his turnover and the same is required to be passed on by him to the recipients of supply, including the Applicant No. 1. The Authority finds that the computation of the amount of ITC benefit to be passed on by the Respondent to the eligible recipients works out to Rs.1,54,269/-. The DGAP has calculated the amount of ITC benefit to be passed on to all the eligible recipients as Rs.1,54,269/- on the basis of the information supplied by the Respondent. The Respondent has not disputed the methodology adopted by the DGAP or the amount of profiteering worked out by the DGAP. The Respondent vide E-mail dated 13.07.2020 has given a statement of anti-profiteering amount paid to customers and interest separately and enclosed the list of such recipient sent vide E-mail dated 29.05.2020.
In view of the above discussions, the Authority finds and determines that the Respondent has profiteered by an amount of Rs. 1,54,269/- for the project ‘Celebrity Garden Block K’ during the period of investigation i.e. 01.07.2017 to 30.09.2019. The above amount that has been profiteered by the Respondent from his Home buyers in the above mentioned project. The claim of their refund along with the interest @18% thereon, from the date when the above amount was profiteered by him till the date of such payment, in line with the provisions of Rule 133 (3) (b) of the GCST Rules 2017, need to be verified by the concerned CGST/SGST Commissionerate.
This Authority under Rule 133 (3) (a) of the CGST Rules, 2017 orders that the Respondent shall reduce the prices to be realized from the buyers of the flats commensurate with the benefit of ITC received by him as has been detailed above.
FULL TEXT OF ORDER OF NATIONAL ANTI-PROFITEERING AUTHORITY
The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NM) vide Interim Order No. 34/2020 dated 11.12.2020 in this matter has given the following order:-
i. “It is observed that the above provision of the RERA Act, 2016 makes it mandatory for a real estate developer/promoter to maintain separate bank accounts for each of his projects registered separately under the RERA Act, 2016. In the case of the Respondent, the above provision implies that he was required to maintain four separate escrow/bank accounts in respect of the four towers/blocks of the project “Celebrity Gardens,’ however the DGAP’s Report had no mention of this aspect. It had a bearing on the instant proceedings since the DGAP’s Report dated 23.03.2020 only covers one of the four blocks i.e. Block ‘K As the Respondent had obtained four separate RERA registrations for his four blocks/towers, he should had maintained separate escrow/bank accounts. In case the Respondent had not complied with the above-mentioned provision of the RERA Act, 2016, then the entire project “Celebrity Gardens” comprising all his blocks/towers, should be considered as a single project for the computation of profiteering, given that the Respondent had been maintaining a common ITC register/ITC ledger for all the blocks of his said project and had been filing common GST Returns for all the blocks/towers of the said project “Celebrity Gardens’: Hence, the compliance of the Respondent with the above-referred provisions of the RERA Act, 2016, becomes paramount and need to be examined. In view of this, there arises the need to revisit the investigation to ascertain if the Respondent had passed on the benefit of ITC to the homebuyers of the other 3 towers/blocks of the impugned project by a commensurate reduction in the prices of the residential units supplied by him in terms of Section 171 of the CGST Act, 2017.
ii. Further, we also find that there is a significant variation in the figures adopted by the DGAP in Table-‘B’ in his Report dated 23.03.2020 vis-a-vis the figures mentioned in the statutory tax returns filed by the Respondent, i. e, the figures of ITC and turnover for the period from 01.04.2016 to 30.06.2017 and the post-GST period from 01.07.2017 to 30.09.2019. The said variation in the two sets of figures of ITC and turnover was detailed in the Table below: –
Table
