More Stories

Informist, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court Wednesday said it would hear on Friday petitions seeking a stay on proceedings related to show-cause notices issued by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence against online gaming companies. The apex court was hearing a bunch of cases in which the government's decision to retrospectively impose 28% goods and services tax on the full value of the bets placed, and not on the gross gaming revenue, has been challenged.

 

Some online gaming companies told the court that the issue was pending for a long time. Fearing coercive action by tax authorities, these companies sought a stay on proceedings in the show-cause notices. 

 

In April, the apex court transferred to itself a batch of 27 pending cases from nine high courts on the same issue. The top court has tagged these petitions with a pending case of a 210-bln-rupee show-cause notice issued to online gaming platform Gameskraft by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence. The apex court was also hearing petitions filed by two e-gaming companies – Head Digital Works and Play Games 24*7 – besides the E-Gaming Federation of India, on the same issue, and had issued a notice to the government in January last year. 

 

In the Gameskraft case, the top court had stayed a Karnataka High Court order that quashed the 210-bln-rupee show-cause notice issued to the company. Most of the show-cause notices were issued after the GST Council in 2023 decided to levy a uniform goods and services tax of 28% on the full face value of the bets placed on all online gaming platforms. The government believes that some of these companies leveraged the lack of clarity on taxation of 'game of chance' and 'game of skill' earlier. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary had told the Rajya Sabha on Dec 5, 2023, that the government had issued 71 notices worth a cumulative 1.12 trln rupees to online gaming companies between April 2022 and October 2023.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.