Dream11 withdraws plea against the state revenue department from the Bombay High Court

Fantasy sports platform Dream 11 on Wednesday withdrew its petition in the Bombay High Court that challenged the revenue department’s show cause notices issued by the company for alleged evasion of Goods and Services Tax (GST) of over Rs 1,200 crore.

The development came after the additional government pleader Jyoti Chavan appearing for the state authorities informed the court that the department had withdrawn the show cause notice.

Originally the state GST department had issued a notice for the financial year 2017-18 and 2018-19 alleging tax evasion. Subsequently, the company Dream11 challenged these notices in the high court.


The state government counsel said they had withdrawn the show-cause notices and the Directorate General of GST claimed it would be issuing fresh show-cause notices. After that, the virtual gaming company decided to withdraw its petition.

In a separate case, the high court has adjourned the petition filed by another virtual gaming company Playerzpot Media Pvt Ltd that has challenged the show cause notices issued by the state tax department. The company is challenging a demand and penalty notice of about Rs 532 crore.

In this case, Playerzpot through counsel Bharat Raichandani and law firm Khaitan & Co argued that the notices gave retrospective effect to the amendments to the GST Act that fixed a tax on online fantasy sports services at the rate of 28%.

The division bench of Justices GS Kulkarni and Jitendra Jain has adjourned the matter for six weeks.