Service tax refund certification: consolidated Chartered Accountant certificate was sufficient; invoice-wise separate certification was not mandatory.

Refund of service tax under Notification No. 41/2007-S.T. could not be denied merely because each invoice was not separately certified by a Chartered Accountant. The Tribunal treated the certification requirement as evidentiary, intended to confirm that the services were used for exports and paid for by the assessee. A consolidated certificate containing invoice-wise details was held to be sufficient compliance, and the objection that individual certification was mandatory was rejected. The assessee was therefore entitled to the refund.

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Issues: Whether refund of service tax under Notification No. 41/2007-S.T. could be denied for want of individual certification of each invoice by a Chartered Accountant when a consolidated certificate containing invoice details was furnished.

Analysis: The refund claim related to service tax paid on services used for export purposes. The lower authorities rejected the claim on the ground that the notification required original invoices duly certified and that the invoices had not been separately certified one by one. The Tribunal held that the object of the certification requirement was only to verify that the services were used for exports and were in fact paid for by the assessee. A consolidated Chartered Accountant certificate setting out the details of each invoice was sufficient compliance with the notification condition, and the objection that individual certification was mandatory was not sustainable.

Conclusion: The refund could not be denied on the ground of absence of separate invoice-wise certification, and the assessee was entitled to refund.

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