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The impugned order was passed by the Commissioner under section 84 as this section stood prior to 19-8-2009. It was passed on 24-3-2011. With effect from 19-8-2009, the date on which a new appellate remedy was granted in the place of the erstwhile revisionary remedy against orders passed by Central Excise officers subordinate to Commissioner of Central Excise, section 84 offers appellate remedy against an order passed by an Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise. The provision for revision of such an order by the Commissioner ceased to be in force on 19-8-2009.
The appellant has placed on record the authorization letter dated 15.3.2005 addressed by PBPL to Assistant /Deputy Commissioner, Central Excise, Varanasi authorising the appellant to manufacture biscuit on their behalf. Further perusal of the terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between PBPL and the appellant would show that as per the job work contract the appellant were required to process and manufacture biscuit, carry out inspection, packing and delivery to various depot of PBPL located all over the country as directed by PBPL.
Provisions of the section 73(1A) of the Finance Act, 1994 will apply in full force in this case, as there is payment of entire amount of service tax liability and interest thereof before the issuance of show cause notice (SCN). In my view, it is a fit case wherein the proceedings initiated against the assessee for the imposition of penalties, under various sections needs to be set aside and I do so.
The ld. A.R. submits that penalties have been imposed because they did not pay in time the tax due. We find that there is no case for imposing penalty for an amount more than net tax liability. So the penalty under Section 78 is reduced to Rs. 18,889/-. Further, penalty under Section 76 is waived and also the appellant is given an opportunity to pay 25% of the penalty under Section 78 in 30 days of receipt of the order. If such payment is not made in such timeframe full penalty will be payable.
Issue involved in this case is regarding the bona fide belief of the assessee during the relevant period. During the relevant period, the activity of receiving commission from the bankers for providing the help of identifying the purchasers of the vehicles and completing all the formalities was in dispute before the Tribunal. The said dispute got settled against the assessee. In my considered view, the appellant M/s. Rajesh Auto Finance/Shri Rajesh Biharilal Gandhi would have entertained a bona fide belief that the services rendered by them are not liable to service tax under the category of business auxiliary services.
Learned Advocate submits that lower authorities have also taken into account the Service Tax availed on the capital goods whereas the restriction of 20% utilisation is only in respect of the input service credit. He draws my attention to two precedent decision of the Tribunal in the same appellants case being BSNL v. CCE&C [2009] 21 STT 127 (Bang.-Cestat) and BSNL v. CCE [Final Order No. A/265/2011, dated 28-3-2011]. It stands held in the said decision that the restriction to use 20% of the credit in case of non-maintenance of separate Cenvat accounts for taxable and exempted services is only in respect of inputs service credit. Matter stands remanded to the lower authorities for segregating said credit falling on the input services as also on capital goods and to decide the matter afresh.
Appellants have filed a writ petition against the stay order dated 13.10.2011 passed by the Tribunal and Hon’ble Madras High Court had dismissed the writ petition. As the order passed by the Tribunal is merged with the order passed by the Hon’ble High Court, hence the Tribunal has no power to modify the stay order dated 13.10.2011. Further, we note that the vide order dated 19.12.2011 has granted time to make deposit as per the stay order passed by the Tribunal by 30.01.2012 and the appellants had not complied with the directions of the Hon’ble Madras High Court. Therefore, the appeal is dismissed for non-compliance with the provisions of section 35 of the Central Excise Act.
Since a substantial amount has already been paid and regarding the balance amount also the appellant claims to have paid but does not have the evidence in view of the destruction of documents in flood, I consider that the appellant has made out a strong prima facie case for waiver of pre-deposit and grant of stay. Accordingly, the requirement of pre-deposit of service tax demanded with interest and penalty is waived and stay against recovery is granted during the pendency of appeal.
After the amendment of Rule 6 of CENVAT credit Rules, 2004 by Finance Act, 2010, in view of the provisions section 73 of Finance Act, 2010, when an assessee gave a calculation of credit attributable to the inputs used in the manufacture of exempted products, the only option available to Revenue was to either accept the calculation or say what is wrong with the calculation and give Revenue’s calculation with proper basis and ask the assessee to rebut Revenue’s calculation. It was no longer open to demand 10% of the price or 5% of the price as the case may be of the exempted products. Therefore, we feel that the order has not been passed properly. Therefore, after waiving the requirement of predeposit for hearing the appeal, we proceed to decide the appeal itself.
The Counsel for the appellant submits that for the purpose of calculation, Revenue is taking into account the entire receipts of the appellants whereas the taxable value should be taken after allowing abatement of 50% in terms of Notification No. 1/-90ST and once only taxable value is taken into account, the turnover is below the value as laid down in the small scale notification and they were eligible for exemption. The Assistant Commissioner set aside the show-cause notice but Revenue filed appeal and Commissioner (Appeals) has confirmed the demand.
