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The Bombay High Court in the case having W.P(C).1085/2024 has held that the service provided by an individual advocate or a partnership firm of advocates of legal services is exempt from levy of service tax and further, the court has observed that the taxable service in respect of services provided by the individual advocate for a firm of advocates has been set out to be Nilwherein the Notification No. 25/2012, also clearly provides that the service provided by an individual advocate, a partnership firm of advocates, by way of legal services, is exempt from the levy of service tax.

The brief facts pertaining to this case are:

• The petitioner is a practicing advocate and has challenged an order passed by the DCCGST by which an amount towards service tax was ordered to be recovered from the petitioner, inter alia along with the interest and penalty.
• The petitioner further contended that the department, in passing the order hence, interference by the court in the proceeding would be justified and there are several procedural illegalities, amounting to a breach of the principles of natural justice, in passing the order wherein the first SCN based on which the impugned order has been passed was neither issued nor received by the petitioner and once the order itself was without jurisdiction which was binding on the designated officer, he could not have passed the order.
• Decision: The court noted that the without any jurisdiction forwarded the proceedings, as service tax was not leviable on the individual advocate and such contention had not been considered by the Designated Officer before passing the order and hence preferred to quash and set aside the order for the reasons that the designated officer had passed without jurisdiction.