Service tax demand fails where labour-law registration does not prove taxability and extended limitation lacks suppression.

Registration under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 does not by itself establish taxable security agency service; taxability depends on the actual service rendered under the contract. The text also highlights that the extended limitation period requires suppression or equivalent grounds, and where no such ingredients are shown, recovery is time-barred. On that basis, the demand could not be sustained and the Revenue challenge failed. The stated ratio is that a service tax demand cannot survive when the extended period is unavailable for want of suppression, even if the service classification is disputed.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether the respondent's activities amounted to taxable security agency service; (ii) Whether the demand was barred by limitation in the absence of suppression or other grounds for invoking the extended period.

Issue (i): Whether the respondent's activities amounted to taxable security agency service.

Analysis: The respondent was registered under section 12 of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 for providing security services. The impugned order examined the scope of the services and the contract in detail and found that registration under labour law, by itself, did not determine taxability. The demand could not be sustained merely on that basis without a proper examination of the service actually rendered.

Conclusion: The respondent was not held liable merely on the basis of labour-law registration; the demand did not survive on merits as framed.

Issue (ii): Whether the demand was barred by limitation in the absence of suppression or other grounds for invoking the extended period.

Analysis: The order recorded a clear finding that the ingredients necessary for invocation of the extended period were absent and that there was no evidence of suppression. It was also noted that the recovery had not been proposed under the appropriate provisions, but the decisive ground was that the limitation bar applied and the scope for recovery therefore failed.

Conclusion: The demand was barred by limitation and could not be sustained.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed and the demand was set aside on the ground that the limitation bar applied, resulting in dismissal of the Revenue's challenge.

Ratio Decidendi: A demand for service tax cannot be sustained where the extended period is unavailable for want of suppression or equivalent ingredients, even if the underlying service description is disputed.

---