2014 (9) TMI 333

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....tter of recovery of service tax in respect of taxable service of "Clearing and Forwarding Agent". 2. The petitioner is a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 having its registered office at 9B, Wood Street, 5th Floor, Kolkata. The petitioner is engaged in business activities of supervision, liaison and coordination in the process of supplying coal from South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), collieries of Coal India to its customers as per various agreements entered with its customers namely M/s. Larsen and Toubro Ltd., M/s. Ultra Tech Chemco Ltd. and M/s. Lafarge India Pvt. Ltd. The petitioner carries out activities of supervision and coordination from its branch offices at Bilaspur and Raipur. According to the petitione....

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....se present is a not a case of any fraud or misrepresentation or suppression of any fact towards evasion of tax. It is next contended that as the petitioner has been registered under Centralized Registration at Kolkata, in view of the provision contained in Rule 4(2) of the Service Tax Rules, 1994 (hereinafter referred to as "the Rules of 1994"), the petitioner could be assessed only by the competent authority of the Excise Department at Kolkata and the respondent No. 2 at Raipur has no territorial jurisdiction to initiate the proceedings of recovery of tax. It has been urged that as a matter of fact, the petitioner has already been assessed to service tax in respect of "Clearing and Forwarding Agent Services" in respect of the period from 1....

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....to initiate recovery proceedings as the transactions inviting tax liability have taken place within the territorial jurisdiction of the State of Chhattisgarh. Learned counsel for the Revenue submits that the petitioner was not registered under Section 69 of the Act of 1994 with the respondent-authority nor furnished any return before the authority. It was only when the enquiry was made from the service consumers of the petitioner that it was revealed that the petitioner had provided services as "Clearing and Forwarding Agent" to its consumers in Chhattisgarh. After making necessary enquiry, collecting material, show cause notice has been issued. Therefore, in view of the provision contained in the proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 73 of....

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....which has been issued to the petitioner on 23-5-2006 by the Commissioner, Customs & Central Excise, Raipur reveals that there is considerable overlapping of the petitioner's liability towards payment of service tax under the head "Clearing and Forwarding Agent". The notice issued by the Excise Authority at Kolkata, covered the period from 1-9-1999 to 31-3-2004, which is included in the period of notice under notice dated 23-5-2006 issued by the Central Excise Authority at Raipur. The transactions mentioned in the notice dated 23-5-2006 and notice dated 18-10-2004 are also overlapping and most of the transactions, on bare perusal, appear to be the same. It is also not in dispute by the respondents that on 25-4-2006, the Commissioner, Service....