Delhi High Court strikes down IGST imposition on imported Oxygen Concentrators

The Delhi High Court held that the exclusion of citizens who receive oxygen concentrators as gifts for personal use from tax exemption violates the right to equality.

“The exclusion of individuals, such as the petitioner, from the benefits of the 03.05.2021 notification only because they chose to receive the oxygen concentrators as a gift, albeit directly, without going through a canalizing agency is, in our opinion, violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. While it is permissible for the State to identify a class of persons, to whom tax exemption would be extended, it is not permissible for the State to exclude a set of persons who would ordinarily fall within the exempted class by creating an artificial, unreasonable, and substantially unsustainable distinction.”

"The conditions prescribed in the notification dated 03.05.2021, prevent the petitioner from claiming exemption from imposition of IGST, although, the oxygen concentrator imported by him is gifted [i.e., has been received free of cost] and is for personal use. Condition no. 1, which exempts from the imposition of IGST only those oxygen concentrators that are imported, for COVID relief through canalizing agency creates, to our minds, a manifestly arbitrary and unreasonable distinction between two identically circumstanced users depending on how the oxygen concentrator has been imported."

"Having found so, in our view, a declaratory relief can be accorded, to the effect, that imposition of IGST on oxygen concentrators, imported as gifts, i.e., free of cost, for personal use, is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution on the ground that an artificial, unfair and unreasonable distinction has been drawn between persons, who are similarly circumstanced as the petitioner and those who import oxygen concentrators through a canalizing agency."