- (1.) Since all these writ petitions involve common questions of facts and law, they are being decided by a common order. The facts and grounds are taken from the writ petition No.12033/2012, treating the same as the lead case.
(2.) The case of the petitioner is that it is a vocational educational institute and is providing vocational education which is job oriented. The institute is duly registered under the Service Tax Act, 1994. The petitioner company states that it does not carry on business of purchase and sale of goods, and consequently has not opted for registration under the Rajasthan Value Added Tax Act, 2003 (herein after 'the 2003 Act'). The business of the petitioner company is instead stated to be of appointing franchises in Rajasthan and across India charging a specific amount as franchise fee and royalty for service rendered not only for the use of its name and services but also for providing faculty, retraining of faculty, online registration and examination, staff training, certification and placement of students, conduct of job fairs, advertisements, promotions and media support etc. For this purpose the petitioner has entered into written agreements with the franchise/ affiliates according to which the franchise/ affiliates are only granted licence to use the software, information and services provided by the petitioner and the effective control and possession of the trade mark, service mark, trading name, trading style, trade description, design, insignia and logo associated with the name of petitioner rests solely and exclusively with the petitioner company.
(3.) Counsel submits that a survey was conducted by the officers of the Commercial Tax Department, Anti Evasion, Zone-I, Jaipur, wherein the department concluded from the transaction in the petitioner's line of business as detailed herein above were liable to be treated as subject to Value Added tax in view of Section 2 (35) of the 2003 Act. Notice was there upon issued to the petitioner company asking it to show cause why VAT not be levied on the transactions? A detailed reply was filed on 21-2-2012 stating therein that the transactions of the petitioner with its franchise/s were in lieu of lump sum franchise fee for providing service i.e.; total consultancy like computer branding, job fair, placement supports, online nomination, certification, faculty support, faculty technical, training etc. A further additional reply was filed on 16-3-2012 by the petitioner stating therein that the main object of the petitioner was to provide technical education for which it was entering into written agreements with its affiliates for a specified period and in turn charging franchise fee and royalty, and that there was no tangible purchase and sale of goods. Only services were being provided for which the petitioner was paying service tax to the Central Excise and Customs Department. It was submitted that the petitioner company could not be made liable for both Service Tax and Value Added Tax on the same transaction.;