2017 (6) TMI 227

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.... ORDER Per: S. S. Garg The present appeal is directed against the impugned order dated 31.7.2012 passed by the Commissioner (A) wherein the Commissioner (A) has rejected the appeal of the appellant. 2. Briefly the facts of the present case are that the appellant is a proprietary concern and is registered under Service Tax under the category of maintenance and repair services. The Departm....

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....tax dues and the delay is purely due to liquidity crunch. The Commissioner (A) has rejected the appeal of the appellant. 3. Heard both the parties and perused the records. 4. Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that appellants are not challenging the service tax and the same has been paid along with interest and penalty of Rs. 5,000/- under Section 77 and the same was paid on 27.8.20....

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....he customers for rendering the taxable services and in the present case, payments were received months after the invoices were raised which resulted in financial hardship for the appellant, who is a small service provider. He also submitted that the non-payment of service tax was not due to collusion, fraud, active concealment of tax, hence the penalty under Section 78 is not warranted and is liab....

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....tself shows mala fide intention of the appellant to evade payment of service tax. In support of this submission, he relied upon the decision in the case of Ketan Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd. vs. CCE reported in 2014 (36) STR 196 (Tri.-Ahmd.). He also submitted that appellants are not entitled to avail the benefit of reduced penalty to the extent of 25% as claimed by the appellant because this be....