2009 (10) TMI 169

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...., TECHNICAL MEMBER M. Vivekanand for the Appellant. Lalit Mohan Chandna for the Respondent. ORDER P. Karthikeyan, Technical Member - This is an appeal filed by the revenue. Vide the impugned order, the Commissioner (Appeals) vacated the order of the Original Authority and remanded the matter for fresh adjudication. The Original Authority had invoked longer period to confirm a demand of Rs....

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....stifying invocation of longer period. The order of the original authority was silent on the assessee's challenge on the point of limitation. Relying on two decisions of the Tribunal, the Commissioner (Appeals) found that penalty imposed on the respondents was not justified as the dispute involved interpretation of statutory provisions and the respondents were under the bona fide belief that the se....

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....ity as a non-speaking order, as it had not justified invocation of longer period. This was a new ground and could not have been validly raised before the appellate authority by the respondents in terms of Rule 5 of Central Excise (Appeals) Rules, 2001. The Commissioner erred in holding that NIIT were under bona fide belief that the impugned services were not exigible to service tax. This was refle....

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....this issue for the first time before the Commissioner (Appeals). As the issue involved is interpretation of statutory provisions, the Commissioner held that no penalty was imposable on the respondents. We find no infirmity in the impugned order. As the original authority had not considered the point of limitation, as well as the Trade Notices on the subject of issue of notices invoking section 73(....