android intent: when can the action be null?

In an already existing projects I see that a service checks if the intent is null and if the intent action is null.

I know that the intent action will be null if the service is invoked as:

context.startService(new Intent(context, MyService.class));

but I do not know whether or not the framework does such invocations.

Does the system ever start a service with a null intent action?

Is it possible that a service is started with null intent?