(i) The extent of applicability of principles of natural justice depends upon the nature of inquiry, the consequences that may visit a person after such inquiry from out of the decision pursuant to such inquiry. The right to fair hearing is a guaranteed right. Every person before an Authority exercising the adjudicatory powers has a right to know the evidence to be used against him. Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. vs. CIT 26 ITR 775 (SC) followed; (ii) However, the principles of natural justice do not require supply of documents upon which no reliance has been placed by the Authority to set the law into motion. Supply of relied on documents based on which the law has been set into motion would meet the requirements of principles of natural justice; (iii) The concept of fairness is not a one way street. The principles of natural justice are not intended to operate as roadblocks to obstruct statutory inquiries. Duty of adequate disclosure is only an additional procedural safeguard in order to ensure the attainment of the fairness and it has its own limitations. The extent of its applicability depends upon the statutory framework;
Appellant(s) are the distributors of imported prepackaged shrink wrapped standardized software from Microsoft and other Suppliers outside India. During the relevant assessment year(s) appellant(s) made payments to the said software Suppliers which according to the appellant(s) represented the purchase price of the abovementioned software. The ITO(TDS) held that since the sale of software included a license to use the same
M/s Azad Coach Builders Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the Assessee) has received an order to build bus bodies, by an Indian exporter (Tata Engineering Locomotive Co. Ltd.) in accordance with an export order placed on the Indian exporter by and specifications provided by the foreign buyer (Lanka Ashok Layland Ltd., Colombo).
The SC has reversed the view of the Bombay High Court which had held that the term business or commercial rightsand licence are referable to a class of intellectual property rights such as know-how, patents, copyrights, trademarks etc. The SC has held that the business or commercial rights need not be similar to a licence or franchise or other classes of intellectual property rights to be considered as an intangible asset.
The Court, by referring the case back to the assessing officer, appears to have accepted the contention that only services rendered by humans can be regarded as a technical service. The ruling has particular significance for the technology sector where similar interpretation issues on taxability of technical services are common. Further as held by the Court, in such cases technical evidence would be required for establishing that there was no human intervention involved in the process.
Unless the conduct of the party suggests that it had a mala fide intent, generally as a normal rule, delay should be condoned. An attempt should always be made to allow the matter to be contested on merits, rather than to conclude it merely on the basis of technicalities.
Challenge in this batch of appeals filed by the revenue under Section 35(L)(b) of the Central Excise Act, 1944 (for short “the Act”) is to the orders passed by the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, South Zone (for short “the Tribunal”), inter alia, holding that the duty of Central Excise on shrimps and shrimp seeds produced and removed by the respondent (hereinafter referred to as “the assessee”), a 100% Export Oriented Unit (for short “EOU”), in the Domestic Tariff Area (for short “DTA”) without the approval of the Development Commissioner, would be payable under Section 3(1) of the Act and not under the proviso appended thereto.
S. 94(7) was inserted prospectively w.e.f. 1.4.2002 to disallow dividend stripping losses. If the argument of the Revenue that even transactions prior to s. 94(7) can be disallowed is accepted, it will render s. 94(7) redundant and also lead to anomalous results.
The notification dt . 10th of September, 2004 was issued and made effective from the date of its issuance. The same did not include the concept of “computer training institute” within its ambit and under the aforesaid notification, exemption was only granted to vocational and recreational training institute. A computer training institute which is defined and was included in the notification dt . 20th June, 2003 was specifically excluded from the purview of the notification dt. 10th Sept ., 2004. The Central Government while doing so was fully conscious of the implication thereof and also of the fact as to what constitutes a computer training institute as defined in the notification dt. 20th June, 2003.
This Article summarizes the decision of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India (SC) in the case of State of Karnataka Vs. Azad Coach Builders Pvt. Ltd. & Anr.(Assessee) [2010-VIL12-SC-CB] on the issue of eligibility of a local manufacturer/dealer to claim exemption under section 5(3) of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (CST Act) if the sale is a penultimate sale made to the exporter in connection to the export of goods. The SC held that if there is an inextricable link between the last sale and the export of goods, the same would be exempt under section 5 (3) of the CST Act.
