In view of the Press Release issued by the Ministry of Finance as shown to the Court today, and the instructions given to Mr. Narula to the effect that the legal position that existed under the Finance Act, 1994 as regard legal services being amenable to service tax under the reverse charge mechanism continuing even under the CGST, DGST or IGST Acts, till further orders, all legal services provided by advocates, law firms of advocates, or LLPs of advocates will be continued to be governed by the reverse charge mechanism unless of course any such legal service provider wants to take advantage of input tax credit and seeks to continue with the voluntary registration under Section 25 (3) of the CGST Act and the corresponding provisions of IGST or DGST Act

It is plain that as of date there is no clarity on whether all legal services (not restricted to representational services) provided by legal practitioners and firms would be governed by the reverse charge mechanism. If in fact all legal services are to be governed by the reverse charge mechanism than there would be no purpose in requiring legal practitioners and law firms to compulsorily get registered under the CGST, IGST and/or DGST Acts. Those seeking voluntary registration would anyway avail of the facility under Section 25 (3) of the CGST Act (and the corresponding provision of the other two statutes). There is therefore prima facie merit in the contention of Mr Mittal that the legal practitioners are under a genuine doubt whether they require to get themselves registered under the three statutes. In the circumstances, the Court directs that no coercive action be taken against any lawyer or law firms for non-compliance with any legal requirement under the CGST Act, the IGST Act or the DGST Act till a clarification is issued by the Central Government and the GNCTD and till further orders in that regard by this Court