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LICHFL Care Homes Limited vs. Director General Of Anti-Profiteering, Central Board Of Indirect Taxes And Customs & Ors.

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:8382-DBDecided 28 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
W.P.(C) 13665/2026CNR: DLHC010443252026
Justice Anil Kshetarpal · Justice Shail Jain

Background

A real-estate developer building the "Jeewan Anand" housing project in Bhubaneswar was found by anti-profiteering authorities to have not passed on the extra tax-credit benefit it gained after GST replaced the earlier tax regime. After an earlier Delhi High Court ruling (Reckitt Benckiser) held the standard method for calculating real-estate "profiteering" was flawed and ordered a fairer per-square-foot method, this case was remanded for recalculation. The redone report again found profiteering of about Rs. 2.07 crore (about Rs. 2.32 crore with GST), upheld by the GST Appellate Tribunal; the developer challenged this, arguing the recalculation still used the rejected method in disguise and unfairly ignored tax credit it says it was legally entitled to (even though never claimed).

Decision Breakdown

The Court held the recalculation was materially different from the rejected methodology: it properly measured actual tax credit gained after GST against project purchase costs, then spread the benefit per square foot, matching the earlier ruling's requirement. On the developer's claim that unclaimed pre-GST credit should count as if already availed, the Court held only credit actually used (not merely theoretically eligible) counts, since the developer's own tax returns showed it took none. The writ petition was dismissed and the anti-profiteering order upheld.

Lesson Learnt

For passing on GST tax-credit benefits to consumers, what counts is credit a business actually used, not credit it was technically eligible for but never claimed: a business cannot retroactively invent pre-GST tax savings to reduce the profiteering amount it must hand back to buyers.

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