Domino’s Pizza / Jubilant Food works found guilty of not passing the GST benefit of Rs. 41.43 crores

The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) passed the order on an email complaint filed by a customer that Jubilant FoodWorks (Domino’s Pizza/respondent) had not reduced the prices of ‘Dominos Stuffed Garlic Bread’ and ‘Medium Veg Pizza’ despite a cut in GST rate from 18 percent to 5 percent.

Further, NAA held that the respondent has not passed on the benefit of reduction in the rate of tax to his recipients, commensurate to the denial of ITC, during the period between 15.11.2017 to 31.05.2018 and accordingly, the quantum of denial of such benefit or profiteered amount illegally earned by the respondent is determined as Rs. 41,42,97,635/- as per provisions of Rule 133(1) of CGST Rules, 2017.

Further, NAA also directed the respondent / Domino’s pizza to refund to the Applicant Sh. Kiran Chimirala, an amount of Rs. 5.65 along with interest @18% from the date of charging of the above amount from him till its refund.

He is further directed to deposit the balance amount of Rs 41,42,97,629.25 as per teh provisions of Rule 133(3)(c) in the ratio of 50:50 in the Central and the State Consumer Welfare Funds along with interest @18 % till the same is deposited, within a period of 3 months.

The NAA also asked the Directorate General of Anti-Profiteering (DGAP), which investigated the case, to conduct further investigation post 31 May 2018, to check if the benefit of tax reduction was passed to customers or not.