Idp Education India Pvt. Ltd. Vs Union of India (Rajasthan High Court)
Rajasthan High Court held that services rendered under bi partite agreement doesn’t qualify as intermediary since not more than two parties are involved in the agreement. Accordingly, writ petition is allowed.
Facts- Petitioner is a subsidiary of IDP Education Ltd., a publicly listed Australian Company (IDP Australia). IDP Australia has entered into agreements with various Foreign Universities, inter alia, to assist aspiring students with enrolment with these Foreign Universities.
To meet its obligation towards the Foreign Universities, IDP Australia has further entered into a separate service agreement with petitioner. Under the said agreement, petitioner provides services with regard to student’s placement, providing information and guidance of courses, qualification requirement, counseling, enrollment services etc., to the students aspiring to join Foreign Universities. As per the agreement, IDP Australia remains the ultimate authority for finalizing of the admission process. A certain percentage (77%) of the application processing fee received by IDP Australia is paid to petitioner as consideration for the services rendered by it to IDP Australia.
The services provided by petitioner to IDP Australia are on principal-to-principal basis and the final authority to decide on a student’s admission is with IDP Australia without petitioner having any say about the same. The entire arrangement is akin to sub-contracting of services by IDP Australia to petitioner which IDP Australia is obliged to provide to Foreign Universities.
