The High Court of Delhi in a recent petition stated that the Service Tax Audit under Goods and Service Tax (GST) is permissible. The statement or HC come into a petition which was filed by Aargus Global Logistics Pvt. Ltd and it was related to Section 174(2)(e) of the Central Goods and Service Tax (CGST) 
Get the brief introduction of SGST, IGST and CGST. We have mentioned their full forms, meanings and adjustments of input tax credit under GST in India Act, 2017. The section specifically empowers the authorities to institute any inquiry, investigation, assessment proceedings, verification, assessment proceedings, adjudication, etc. under Rule 5A of the Service Tax Rules.
Aargus Global Logistics Pvt. Ltd. is a company with a business of providing freight forwarding services to its clients. With offices in multiple cities including Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, etc. the Petitioner had a centralized registration for the purpose of service tax, with the service tax department at Delhi. However, the petitioner reached court with disputation that the authorities are not empowered to institute any inquiry, verification, investigation, assessment proceedings, adjudication, etc. He further added that “there is no provision in Section 174 to save the Service Tax Rules, as it is only Chapter V of the Finance Act, 1994 which has been saved for the specific purposes mentioned in Clauses (a) to (f) of Section 174 (2) and that failure of the Parliament to mention the word “Rules”, along with the Finance Act, 1994 in Section 174 (2), means that the Service Tax Rules were not saved even for the purpose of enforcing the saving provisions, is held to be completely meritless”.
These all come to the light, in this case, was whether the authorities were empowered to conduct a service tax audit or not under GST?
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The division bench of Delhi High Court that consist of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sanjeev Narula stated that ‘Section 174(2)(e) of the Central Goods and Service Tax (CGST) Act, 2017, and even, in this case, it is considered too, the section empowers the authorities to initiate any verification, inquiry, adjudication, investigation, assessment proceedings, etc. under Rule 5A of the Service Tax Rules.
