Bbazaar Marketing and Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd Vs Commissioner of G.S.T (CESTAT Chennai)
CESTAT Chennai held that as the debit note doesn’t contain the nature of taxable service provided by the other party to the appellant, such debit note cannot be considered a valid document as per Rule 9 of CCR, 2004 and hence CENVAT Credit ineligible.
Facts-
The appellant filed a refund claim. The CENVAT Credit availed was based on the debit note raised by M/s. A&A Dukaan Financial Services (other party) and that the debit note was consequent to a subsequent agreement entered into by the appellant with the other party. The Assistant Commissioner issued Show Cause Notice on the ground that the said debit note was not a valid document as per Rule 9 of the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004 and consequently, the CENVAT Credit availed was ineligible credit in terms of Rule 9. In the Show Cause Notice, it was proposed that a sum of Rs. 10,44,365/- could not be taken into account and therefore, the refund claim was rejected.
The First Appellate Authority upheld the rejection. Being aggrieved, the present appeal is filed by the appellant.
Conclusion-
It is thus clear that the document in the case on hand, i.e., the debit note, should contain inter alia the details of Service Tax payable, taxable service, etc., but here, as rightly pointed out by the Learned Departmental Representative, in the ‘Particulars’ column, it is mentioned as “being reimbursement of expenses incurred on behalf of A&A Dukaan Insurance Web Aggregator Private Limited”. A perusal of Annexure-3, which is the so-called debit note, which is placed on record, reveals that it does not contain the nature of taxable service per se provided by the other party to the appellant, which is the condition precedent in terms of the proviso to Rule 9(2) ibid. Hence, I am of the view that in the present scenario, the debit note, which is incomplete, cannot be considered as a document specified in Rule 9 ibid.
FULL TEXT OF THE CESTAT CHENNAI ORDER
Shri Rahul Jain, Learned Chartered Accountant and Ms. Shwetha Vasudevan, Learned Advocate, appeared for the appellant and Smt. Sridevi Taritla, Learned Additional Commissioner, appeared for the Revenue.
2. Brief relevant facts, inter alia, are that the appellant filed a refund claim for the refund of Rs.19,79,980/- on 09.07.2018 being the excess Service Tax paid for the period from April 2017 to June 2017; that the original ST-3 return for the above period was filed on 23.08.2017; that a revised ST-3 return was filed on 08.09.2017 by reducing the taxable value; that the CENVAT Credit availed was based on the debit note raised by M/s. A&A Dukaan Financial Services (hereinafter referred to as ‘other party’); that the debit note was consequent to a subsequent agreement entered into by the appellant with the other party; that the Assistant Commissioner issued Show Cause Notice dated 14.08.2019 on the ground that the said debit note was not a valid document as per Rule 9 of the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004 (hereinafter referred to as “CCR, 2004”) and that consequently, the CENVAT Credit availed was ineligible credit in terms of Rule 9 ibid.; that in the above Show Cause Notice, it was proposed that a sum of Rs.10,44,365/- could not be taken into account and therefore, the refund claim to the above extent would be rejected.
3.1 The appellant filed a detailed reply wherein it had placed reliance on various judicial pronouncements, but however, vide Order-in-Original No. 50/2019-R dated 04.12.2019, the Adjudicating Authority rejected the proposed amount while sanctioning the balance claim of refund. Aggrieved by the said order, the appellant preferred an appeal before the Commissioner of G.S.T. and Central Excise (Appeals-I), Chennai. The First Appellate Authority, after hearing the appellant, felt it proper to remand the matter back to the file of the Adjudicating Authority vide Order-in-Appeal No. 31/2020 (CTA-I) dated 21.02.2020 since the appellant had contended that the Adjudicating Authority had not considered the submissions, documents as well as case-laws relied upon, while passing the Order-in-Original. Thereafter, consequent to the directions of the Commissioner (Appeals), the Adjudicating Authority vide de novo Order-in-Original No. 07(R)/2021 dated 23.03.2021 rejected the claim of refund of Rs.10,47,890/-.
3.2 Thereafter, the said rejection came to be challenged before the First Appellate Authority, who, vide impugned Order-in-Appeal No. 98/2021 (CTA-I) dated 27.07.2021, upheld the rejection and thereby rejected the appeal filed by the appellant. The First Appellate Authority upheld the rejection inter alia on the grounds that:-
