2005 (5) TMI 393

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.... for the Respondent. [Order]. - After examining the records and hearing both sides, I am of the view that the appeal must be disposed of finally at this stage. Accordingly, after granting waiver of pre-deposit in respect of the amounts of penalty involved in this case, I take up the appeal for final disposal. 2. The challenge in this appeal is against two penalties, one of Rs. 78,500....

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..../-. This quantification is also not under challenge. The only contention of the appellants against this penalty is that, the delay in payment of service tax having been occasioned by the delay in realisation of the tax from the customers, there was reasonable cause for the delay and, therefore, the appellants should have been exonerated from penal liability in terms of Section 80 of the Finance Ac....

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....able cause. In this connection, the relevant averments of the appellants are contained in grounds (c), (d) and (e) of their Grounds of Appeal, which reads as under :- "(c) Our Clients are however widely spread through almost all district in these States. For example from our Chennai office we assist clients located all over Tamil Nadu and Andhra like in Madurai, Trichy, Tirunelveli, Nagergoil, ....

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.... the regional offices, they would be remitted at the end of that month to our central office at Chennai. The entire process thus from collecting the cheque to realizing the amount at Chennai taking anywhere from 4-6 weeks for us." The gist of their submissions is that there was delay on the part of their branch offices situate in various parts of the country in the matter of realising service t....