SC notice to medical body on Centre's plea to tax svcs offered to members
This story was originally published at 19:57 IST on 25 July 2025
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NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Indian Medical Association on a petition by the Centre against a Kerala High Court order quashing the law to levy goods and services tax on the services offered by the association to its members. Seeking a response to the notice in four weeks, the top court said the Indian Medical Association is not liable for the GST recovery claim being made against it.
The case had its genesis in the high court hearing a petition by the Indian Medical Association. The association said it was not liable to pay tax on the supply of services to its members and apprehended coercive action for recovery of tax when it was served with summons requiring it to produce details of the registration taken by it under the Central Goods and Services Act, 2017, and its audited books of accounts and other financial documents for the financial years between 2017-18 (Apr-Mar) and FY22.
The Indian Medical Association said that it ran various mutual schemes for the benefit of its member-doctors. All the schemes are to support fellow doctors, while one or two schemes support their immediate family members, said the association. The member-doctors contribute an admission or annual fee, and in cases of certain schemes also a fraternity contribution upon the death or disability of a fellow member doctor, said the association. The pooled sum is paid out to the widow of deceased doctors, disabled doctors, and doctors afflicted with specified diseases, it said.
The association said it was not liable to pay GST on services rendered by it to its members under these schemes since it was well settled through a line of precedents that the principle of mutuality would insulate services rendered by a body to its members from the levy of GST on supply of services. En
The high court had declared the law to tax services by the association to be unconstitutional. The court had reasoned that the law went against the definition of "supply" given under Article 246A of the Constitution. End
Reported by Surya Tripathi
Edited by Tanima Banerjee
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