Telangana High Court on Monday passed an interim direction to the State and Central governments not to insist for payment of Goods and Service Tax (GST) by nine colleges offering courses in nursing.
A bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice C.V. Bhaskara Reddy passed this interim order, after hearing a writ petition filed by 10 colleges of nursing challenging a demand notice issued by Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) for payment of 18% GST on the affiliation and inspection fee. The bench, passing the interim direction, said the petitioners should not be insisted for payment of GST till next date of hearing.
The direction applies to the first petitioner, Care College of Nursing, Hyderabad, while the nine other colleges of nursing were instructed to file independent petitions to secure similar relief. The first petitioner stated that the Union of India issued a notification in June of 2017 imposing 9% Central GST and 9% State GST (total of 18%) on educational services.
However, an exemption was granted to “certain specified educational services including services provided to an educational institution” by the Central government. As per the Centre’s notification, an educational institution is one “providing services by way of education as part of a curriculum for obtaining a qualification recognised by any law for time being in force.”
Thus, the Care College of Nursing squarely falls under the definition of educational institution, the petitioner’s counsel contended. Subsequently, the GST Council meeting held in January of 2018 decided that services relating to admission to or conduct of examination provided to all educational institution are exempted from GST, the counsel argued.
