2019 (1) TMI 70
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....thes of the customers in its premises on agreed upon charges, duly accounted in its books of accounts. During investigation, central excise officers verified the transactions, recorded statement of the General manager and issued show-cause cum demand notice dated 21.10.2016 for payment of service tax of Rs. 10,52,362/- for the period from 2011-12 to 2014-15 along with interest penalty invoking provisions of Section 76, 77(2) and 78 of the Finance Act, 1994. The matter was adjudicated upon and duty demand interest as well as penalty except under Section 76 got confirmed in order-in-original against which appellant preferred appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals), Pune who vide his order dated 01.11.2017, waived off duty liability up to imp....
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....13 (288) ELT 161 (SC) he argued that mere omission to pay tax/ file returns by itself cannot establish malafide of the assessee in the absence of independent corroborative evidence in which invocation of extended period is not justified and to that extent the order of the Commissioner (Appeals) is to be declared invalid since duty demand is not sustainable for the entire period. 4. In response to such submissions, ld. AR for the department Shri Dilip Shinde reiterates the reasoning and rationality of the order passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) and in citing case laws reported in 2016 (41) STR 651 (Tri-Del), 2012 (27) STR 242 (Tri-Mumbai),2014 (34) STR 252 (Tri-Ahmd.), 2017 (52) STR 40 (Tri-Del), he argued that penalty imposed for non-pa....
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....r mega exemption Notification no. 25/2012-ST have not contained the name of services provided by the appellant, the further period post negative list is taxable. I find no irregularity in his order on duty liability of the appellant applicable with effect from 01.07.2012, having regard to extension of cum tax benefit as provided under section 67(2) of the Act. 6. Penalty was imposed under Section 77(2) and under Section 78 of the Finance Act, 1994 by the Commissioner (Appeals). But while reducing penalty from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 10,000 under Section 77(2) of the Act, the Commissioner (Appeals) has given his reasoning that Rs. 20,000 was maximum penalty prescribed and as appellant was yet to file the prescribed return for which he considered ....
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.... negative list. It was not filing returns on those scores though it was duly maintaining the record. Further if the contention of ld. Advocate is to be accepted, the rural folk of Indian society continue to follow the same procedure unless being appraised about change of any system, law, rule or regulation and to this extent, the observation of Hon'ble Supreme Court made in Uniworth Textile cited supra that mere non-payment of duty is not equivalent to collusion or wilful mis-statement or suppression of fact is relevant. It was further noted by the Hon'ble apex court that if the same were to be true then what would amount to ordinary default? Ultimately it was held that a specific or more serious niche is to be shown to construe the....