Aon Specialist Services Private Limited Vs Commissioner of Service Tax (CESTAT Bangalore)
The appeal before the CESTAT Bangalore concerned refund of CENVAT credit paid on input services for the period April to December 2007. The appellant, Aon Specialist Services Private Limited, had paid service tax on its input services and filed a refund claim. The refund was rejected on grounds including that the recipient of the service provided by the appellant was in India and therefore the services could not be treated as export of service, absence of correlation between export invoices and Foreign Inward Remittance Certificates (FIRCs), and limitation. The rejection was upheld in appeal, leading to the present proceedings.
The appellant submitted that the show-cause notice dated 23.05.2008 did not allege delay in filing the refund claim or that the services provided by the appellant were not exports. According to the appellant, rejection on those grounds in the impugned order travelled beyond the scope of the show-cause notice. Reliance was also placed on Board Circular No.112/06/2009-ST dated 12.03.2009, which prescribed guidelines for considering refund claims and did not require one-to-one correlation between export invoices and remittances where FIRCs were issued on a consolidated basis.
On the question of nexus between input and output services, the appellant relied upon Rule 5 of the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004 and the decision of the Telangana High Court in CCE v. Qualcomm India Pvt. Ltd. The appellant also relied upon M/s. Societe Generale Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd. v. Commissioner of Service Tax, Bangalore and BT (India) Private Limited v. Union of India & Anr. to contend that the export character of the services could not be questioned at the refund stage in the manner adopted by the authorities.
