CENVAT credit without separate registration remains available where inputs and services are used for output service; suppression must be proved for penalty.

CENVAT credit on duty-paid or tax-paid inputs, capital goods and input services is available even where they are received at premises other than the registered premises, because separate registration of those premises is not a condition precedent when the goods or services are used for providing the output service. The commentary also notes that the extended period of limitation and penalty require evidence of wilful misstatement or suppression of facts; in the absence of such evidence, neither can be sustained. The settled position therefore treats non-registration alone as insufficient to deny credit, and absence of suppression as fatal to extended limitation and penal consequences.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether CENVAT credit on inputs, capital goods, and input services received at premises other than the registered premises could be denied merely for want of registration of those premises; (ii) Whether the extended period of limitation and penalty were invocable in the absence of evidence of wilful misstatement or suppression of facts.

Issue (i): Whether CENVAT credit on inputs, capital goods, and input services received at premises other than the registered premises could be denied merely for want of registration of those premises.

Analysis: The credit was disputed only because the goods and services were received at premises other than the registered premises. There was no dispute that the inputs, capital goods, and input services were duty paid or tax paid, nor was there any dispute that they were used directly or indirectly for providing the output telecommunication service. The governing rules did not impose a condition that credit could be taken only when the relevant premises were separately registered. The settled view relied upon held that registration of premises with the service tax department is not a condition precedent for availing CENVAT credit.

Conclusion: The denial of CENVAT credit was unsustainable and the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the extended period of limitation and penalty were invocable in the absence of evidence of wilful misstatement or suppression of facts.

Analysis: The record did not contain evidence to show wilful misstatement or suppression of facts. In the absence of such evidence, the extended period could not be invoked. Once the demand itself failed, the consequential penalty also could not survive.

Conclusion: The extended period was not invocable and the penalty was not sustainable.

Final Conclusion: The impugned order confirming credit demand, interest, and penalty was set aside and the appeal succeeded.

Ratio Decidendi: Registration of the premises is not a condition precedent for availing CENVAT credit when the duty paid or tax paid inputs, capital goods, and input services are otherwise used for providing the output service, and in the absence of proof of suppression or wilful misstatement, the extended period and penalty cannot be sustained.

---