Transportation by road and extended limitation under service tax law require clear statutory conditions before demand can survive.

Transportation of goods by road in a person's own capacity and vehicles is treated as outside the service tax net unless the activity is shown to be that of a goods transport agency or courier agency; reliance on Form 26AS or income-tax data alone is insufficient. The note also explains that extended limitation can be invoked only on a clear statutory finding of fraud, collusion, wilful misstatement, suppression of facts, or intent to evade tax, and that demand, interest and penalty cannot stand without that jurisdictional foundation.

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Issues: (i) Whether transportation of goods by road undertaken by the petitioner fell within the negative list so as to be outside the service tax net. (ii) Whether invocation of the extended period of limitation and the consequential demand, interest and penalty were sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether transportation of goods by road undertaken by the petitioner fell within the negative list so as to be outside the service tax net.

Analysis: The relevant charging framework levies service tax only on taxable services, while the negative list excludes services by way of transportation of goods by road other than those rendered by a goods transport agency or a courier agency. The petitioner's activity was transportation of goods by road in his own capacity with his own vehicles, and the record did not show that he was a goods transport agency or courier agency. The demand was founded largely on Form 26AS and income tax data, without a proper examination of whether the receipts related to services excluded by the negative list.

Conclusion: The petitioner's transportation activity was outside the service tax net and could not be subjected to levy on the basis adopted by the revenue.

Issue (ii): Whether invocation of the extended period of limitation and the consequential demand, interest and penalty were sustainable.

Analysis: Extended limitation under the recovery provision is available only where non-levy or short levy is attributable to fraud, collusion, wilful misstatement, suppression of facts, or contravention with intent to evade tax. The adjudicating authority did not record a legally sustainable finding satisfying those preconditions, and the order proceeded on assumptions drawn from third-party data without addressing the statutory conditions for invoking the extended period. Since the jurisdictional foundation for extended limitation was absent, the resulting demand, interest and penalty could not be sustained. The writ remedy was also held to be maintainable because the challenge went to jurisdiction.

Conclusion: Invocation of the extended period was invalid, and the demand, interest and penalty were unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The impugned show cause notice and order-in-original were quashed, and the writ petition was allowed.

Ratio Decidendi: A tax demand cannot be sustained on third-party financial data alone where the underlying service is excluded by the charging framework, and extended limitation can be invoked only on a clear finding of fraud, collusion, wilful misstatement, suppression of facts, or deliberate contravention with intent to evade tax.

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