Mumbai: Sporta Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates the online gaming portal Dream11, has filed a petition in the Bombay High Court challenging a pre-show cause notice issued to it by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) alleging evasion of Goods and Services Tax (GST) amounting to the tune of a staggering Rs 25,000 crore.
The plea, filed Monday, is expected to come up for hearing shortly, as the GST pre-show cause notice — billed as the highest ever indirect tax claim from any entity — stumped legal and corporate circles across the country.
Dream11, led by Harsh Jain, is a leading fantasy gaming sector player both in terms of valuation and user base, as per Moneycontrol.com.
The company’s recent valuation crossed $8 billion and it claims to have a user-base of several crores of individuals. Last year, Dream11 posted a net profit of Rs 142 crore from an operating revenue of over Rs 3,840 crore, according to Moneycontrol.com
Besides Dream11, the DGGI is understood to have slapped several such pre-show cause notices targeting leading online real money gaming companies for purported GST dues amounting to over Rs 55,000 crore, and the total GST demand may be almost double to around Rs 100,000 crore.
Among the entities which have been slapped pre-show cause notices (served before the show-cause notice) are Gameskraft, PlayGames24x7, My11Circle, RummyCircle, etc. for huge but varying amounts of GST claims.
IANS