Refund under special service tax provision remains subject to Section 11B compliance; six-month limit treated as directory.

Section 104 of the Finance Act, 2017 is treated as a special exemption and refund provision for service tax collected on one-time development charges, but the refund claim remains governed by the statutory refund framework under Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, 1944 read with Section 83 of the Finance Act, 1994. The six-month period in Section 104(3) is construed as directory rather than mandatory, yet the claimant must still file a complete refund application and satisfy the procedural and temporal requirements of Section 11B. The refund cannot be refused merely for not fitting a rigid reading of Section 104(3), but entitlement depends on compliance with Section 11B.

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Issues: Whether the limitation in sub-section (3) of Section 104 of the Finance Act, 2017 for claiming refund of service tax on one-time development charges collected by SIPCOT is mandatory or directory, and whether the refund claim must satisfy the requirements of Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, 1944 read with Section 83 of the Finance Act, 1994.

Analysis: Section 104 was treated as a special exemption and refund provision for service tax already collected on long-term lease-related development charges. The provision was read as a whole, with the non obstante clause in sub-section (3) operating only within Chapter VA, while the refund mechanism was held to depend on Section 11B through Section 83 of the Finance Act, 1994. Since Section 104 did not prescribe the refund form or dispense with supporting materials, the application had to be a complete refund claim under the statutory refund framework. On that construction, the six-month period in Section 104(3) was held to be directory, but the procedural and temporal requirements of Section 11B continued to apply in full.

Conclusion: The refund application could not be rejected merely for not fitting a rigid construction of Section 104(3); however, refund was available only if the claim satisfied Section 11B. The matter was therefore remitted for examination of limitation under Section 11B.

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