Case Law Details
Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. Vs Commissioner of Central Excise & Service Tax & Anr. (Uttarakhand High Court)
The short question that arises for determination in this writ petition is ‘whether the amount paid by the petitioner, under protest, towards interest , prior to issuance of show cause shall be considered as pre-deposit while disposing his application for waiver under ‘Sabka Vikas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019’ which was issued under Section 24 of the Finance Act.
The High Court of Punjab and Haryana in the case of Schlumberger Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (supra) taking into consideration this provision has held as follows:-
“A bare reading of Section 124(2) reveals that the relief calculated under Section 124(1) is subject to the condition that any amount paid during the enquiry, investigation or audit has to be deducted when issuing the statement indicating the amount payable by the declarant. The bare provision talks of ‘any amount paid’, the same does not distinguish between the amounts paid under different heads. It clearly envisages two kinds of deductions firstly any pre-deposit made at any stage of appellate proceedings under the indirect tax enactment and secondly, any deposit made during enquiry, investigation or audit. Both these species of ‘pre-deposit’ need to be deducted while finalizing the computation.
Amount deposited by the petitioner falls in the second category. The provision only talks of amount irrespective of whether it has been paid as tax or interest or penalty. Thus, the view taken by the Designated Committee cannot be sustained. There is another side to the story. Had the petitioner remitted the entire amount paid by him towards tax, the respondents would have given credit of entire amount and his interest liability would have been waived off as well. The petitioner cannot be punished for depositing the amount under different heads once the provision mandates to discount the amount paid during the investigation dehors the head it has been deposited under.
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