Assignment of concession rights transfers toll collection entitlement and defeats service tax treatment as agency service.

A valid assignment of a concession agreement, made with the grantor's consent and on terms deeming the assignee to be the concessionaire, transfers the right to collect toll to the assignee. The court read the assignment and connected concession documents as a whole and held that substantive assignment clauses prevailed over a preamble reference relied on by the Revenue. Earlier and later notifications were treated as reflective of the factual position, not as controlling the legal character of the arrangement. On that construction, toll collection was not a service rendered as agent of the original concessionaire, and the service tax demand, along with consequential interest and penalties, could not survive.

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Issues: Whether, on a proper construction of the assignment agreement and connected concession documents, the respondent was the concessionaire entitled to collect toll and therefore not liable to service tax under Business Auxiliary Service.

Analysis: The operative clauses of the assignment agreement showed that CIDBI assigned and transferred the concession agreement to the respondent, the respondent undertook to perform the concession agreement as if it had been entered into with NHAI, NHAI consented to the assignment, and the respondent was deemed to be the concessionaire. The earlier and later notifications were treated as reflecting the factual position and not as determinative of the legal question. The preamble reference relied on by the Revenue could not override the substantive assignment clauses. On a conjoint reading of the agreement, the respondent alone was entitled to collect toll under the concession.

Conclusion: The respondent was the concessionaire and not an agent of CIDBI, and the service tax demand on toll collection was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The Revenue's challenge failed, the Tribunal's order was upheld, and the service tax demands with consequential interest and penalties did not survive.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an assignment agreement validly transfers the concession agreement and the assignee is deemed to be the concessionaire with the grantor's consent, toll collection under that concession belongs to the assignee and is not to be treated as service rendered as an agent of the original concessionaire.

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