A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here seeking a direction to the Union Finance Ministry to desist from levying service tax on payments made to private educational coaching institutes and life insurance companies.
R. Lakshmanan, an advocate based here, had filed the PIL petition on the ground that it was unfair on the part of the Centre to impose service tax even on parents who choose to send their children to private coaching classes due to the failure of the State to provide best education.
“Either the government must provide excellent coaching as it was done in countries such as the United States and United Kingdom or at least give service tax exemption by listing the coaching institutes under the negative list of services as per Section 66D of the Finance Act, 1994,” he contended.
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Similarly, he sought to exempt payments made towards life insurance premium too from the service tax net. An affidavit filed by the petitioner claimed that the Centre had included betting, gambling and lottery in the negative list of services and exempted them from service tax, but had not provided a similar exemption to private educational institutions that conduct tuitions and impart coaching for competitive examinations.