Grant-in-aid received under a government scheme for setting up...

Grant-in-aid received under a government scheme for setting up and modernising a rice milling unit was treated as reimbursement of capital expenditure already incurred, not as consideration for any taxable service. The Tribunal found no service provider-recipient relationship, no evidence of any knowhow or intellectual property being created and transferred, and no contractual counter-obligation arising from the grant conditions. In the absence of consideration for a service, the amount was held outside service tax under the Finance Act, 1994. The demand for tax, interest and penalty was therefore set aside, following earlier decisions treating grant-in-aid or reimbursement, without anything over and above the grant, as non-taxable.