TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2018 (7) TMI 1129
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.... registered under the Companies Act, 1956 and is engaged in the manufacturing of D-Oiled Cake & Oil. For extraction of Oil the appellant brings oilseeds from Mandis or nearby villages to its factory. For the said purpose they engage the service of Goods Transport Agency (GTA). According to the department the appellant were not paying the service tax as per Notification No. 34/2004 -ST dated 03.12.2004 on the gross amount charged on an individual consignments transported in goods carriage between Rs. 750 to Rs. 1500, therefore a show cause notice dated 3.10.2012 was issued to the appellant as to why: (i) The Service Tax amounting to Rs. 61,224/- (S. Tax Rs. 59,440/- + Ed. Cess Rs. 1189/- + H. Ed Cess Rs. 595/-) under the category of....
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....fication no. 34/2004-ST dated 3.12.2004 which exempts the taxable service provided by a GTA to a customer, is reproduced as under: "In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of Section 93 of the Finance Act, 1994 (32 of 1994), the Central Government, being satisfied that it is necessary in the public interest so to do, hereby exempts the taxable service provided by a goods transport agency to a customer, in relation to transport of goods by road carriage, from the whole of Service tax leviable under Section 66 of the said Act, where,- (i) The gross charged on consignments transported in a goods carriage does not exceed rupees one thousand five hundred; or (ii) The gross charged on an individual consig....
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....consignments does not exceed to Rs. 1500/-, whether not for multiple consignees, the exemption would apply for the entire consignment. It is merely fortuitous that under clause (i) there can be an individual consignee or more than one consignees. She further submitted that under clause (i) if there are two consignees with respective consignment value of Rs. 1000/- and Rs. 500/- respectively transported in a single transport vehicle, the exemption cannot be denied to the GTA as the gross value does not exceed Rs. 1500/- notwithstanding the individual consignment is going about Rs. 750/-. Therefore it shows that clause (ii) is independent of clause (i). She further submitted that that since the gross value for the transportation of consignmen....
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....ansported in a goods carriage exclusively for transportation of goods consigned to the appellant had freight amount exceeding Rs. 750/- thereby attracting the provisions of clause (ii) of the said Notification Clause (i) will apply only where the gross amount charged on consignments transported in a goods carriage does not exceed Rs. 1500/-. In other words clause (i) dealt with gross amount charged/paid in respect of multiple consignments. In the present case, admittedly, there is no multiple consignments. As per the clear language of explanation to "individual consignment" used in the aforesaid notification no. 34/2004, the exemption is only admissible to goods transported as a single consignment for which the freight charge is not above R....
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....here gross amount paid on individual consignments transported in a goods carriage did not exceed Rs. 750/- only and not in cases where gross amount paid on consignments transported in a goods carriage was upto Rs. 1500/- as contented by BIOL. He held BIOL liable to pay service tax on the freight amount paid in all cases where the gross amount charged/paid on an individual consignment transported in a goods carriage exceeded Rs. 750/-. BIOL has argued that the notification extended two types of exemption under the clauses (i) and (ii). It is argued that BIOL was eligible for exemption when the goods carriage transported only a single consignment belonging to BIOL and freight paid was upto Rs. 1500/-. The explanation for the expression "indiv....