2015 (9) TMI 943

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.... the extent of sustaining the demand along with interest for the normal period of one year under cargo handling service for the service rendered by these appellants to M/s Maganese Ore India Ltd. (MOIL) but the said orders-in-original the demand under cargo handling service was confirmed for the extended period of five years along with interest and also penalties were imposed under Section 76, 77 and 78. 2. The Revenue filed appeals Nos. ST/305-306/2009 against the said order-in-appeal on the ground that the Commissioner (Appeals) has incorrectly set aside the demand for the period beyond the normal period and penalties were also unjustifiably dropped as the appellants were guilty of suppression of facts. 3. No one appeared on behalf of t....

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....he appellants) did not mark their presence in response to the summons and only sent their written submission and supplied the sought information almost three weeks after the date on which they were required to appear before the service tax officers along with the required details. So, the appellants are guilty of suppression of facts. Revenue also contended that suppression is sufficient to invoke the extended period as it is not required to be proved that suppression was with intent to evade payment of duty because the expression "with intent to evade payment of duty" does not appear in sub-clause (d) of proviso to Section 73 (1) of the Finance Act, 1994 5. We have considered the contentions of both sides and we have also perused the cont....

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....uarry beds to surface stocks/railway siding. Thus the facts in these two cases were quite different. 6. Coming to the Revenue's appeal that extended period was rightly invoked by the primary adjudicating authority and therefore demand for extended period should be upheld and penalties restored, we find that the primary adjudicating authority has taken note of the fact that the service recipient M/s Maganese Ore India Ltd. had made a representative to CBEC regarding (non) taxability of the impugned service.  The service was rendered to a public sector unit which had taken up the matter with CBEC contending that it was not taxable.  It is thus evident that it is not a case where the appellant-assessees could/would have intended....