TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (11) TMI 310
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.... brief facts of the case are that the applicant State Bank of India (SBI for short) entered into a contract with M/s EquantPte. Ltd. (Equant for short) for providing Virtual Private Network (VPN) which enables the SBI and SBI branches to retrieve data from the data centre maintained by the applicants in different countries abroad. Under the agreements the service description for Equant IP/VPN Service as described as follows: "Equant IP VPN is a managed network service that provides secure IP internet working, which enables connectivity between many customer routers in an "any-to-any" environment using IP switching. As customer has elected Customer-Managed (Gold Lite) IPVPN service, customer shall supp....
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....f the SBI through computer network/band width is provided by Equant is meant for SBI in India. It was further alleged that since the foreign offices of SBI are not separately constituted establishments, the service received by these foreign offices is for use in relation to business of SBI established in India. The appellant had contended before the adjudicating authority that they had only provided the VPN for use by foreign offices/branches of SBI and not by SBI, Head office in India. It was also contended that Equant had an office in India also hence section 66A would be inapplicable. They had only provided the link between all foreign offices of SBI to their respective data bases in the SBI data centres abroad to which the foreign offic....
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....licability of service tax in respect of C&W because there has been no notice served upon the appellants in respect of service provided by C&W. The present case deals with the service provided by Equant. The connectivity of various FOs to the server on data centre, which is also located abroad, is provided in the form of VPN and bandwidth (Cable lines) through which data can travel. Equant does not provide any routers, computers or equipments. They only provide VPN connectivity through bandwidth which enables FOs to connect to data centre which also belongs to SBI abroad, for accessing data. Therefore, it is clear that the service provider and service recipient are both located abroad. The bills raised by Equant are also issued to FOs and th....
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....ndia and payments were made by the foreign office located outside India to the service providers also located outside India. In this situation, it is not understood how the Revenue is alleging that the service provided amounts to service received in India from outside India. The appellants have made a positive statement to the effect that the foreign offices are connected to the data centre abroad through VPN and it is not possible for the domestic offices to have any access to FO network. In the absence of contradiction by the revenue on these facts, we cannot but agree with the appellant that the said service is not covered under section 66A read with rule 3(iii) of Taxation of Services (Provided from Outside India and Received in India) ....
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....to information access/retrieval. And EQuant has not provided information and database. The ownership of data is with the FOs. This is a vital fact. The Commissioner's finding that it is not necessary that the original data should emerge or originate from the provider of VPN network is an incorrect reading of section 65(75) and 65(105)(zh). It would be pertinent to refer to another taxable service on the telecommunication service under section 65(109)(A) brought into effect on 01.07.2007 which means "service of any description provided by means of a transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images and sounds or intelligence or information of any nature, by wire, radio, optical, visual or other electro-magnetic means....