2019 (7) TMI 831

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....for providing services on health and fitness taxable from 30.06.2012. The intelligence revealed that the appellant is providing taxable service of health club and fitness services without getting registered, without payment of Service Tax, without filing the returns. After detailed investigation, a SCN dated 23.11.2015 was issued to the appellant demanding Service Tax of Rs. 20,27,851/- for the period from 01.04.2011 to 30.09.2014. After following the due process, the Assistant Commissioner vide Order-in-Original dated 05.12.2016 confirmed the demand of Service Tax of Rs. 20,27,851/- along with interest and imposed penalty of Rs. 10,000/- under Section 77(1)(a) and late fee of Rs. 1,60,000/- under Rule 7C and also imposed a penalty of Rs. 2....

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.... the first proviso to Section 78(1) of the Act clearly provides that where true and complete details of the transactions are available in the specified record, penalty shall be reduced to fifty per cent of the Service Tax so levied or paid. He further submitted that in view of this proviso to Section 78, imposition of equal penalty is opposed to the statutory provision and therefore unsustainable in law. He further submitted that the present case is only of differential demand based on the difference in ledger accounts as well as balance sheet figures with ST-3 Returns. He further submitted that mere non-registering and non-paying of Service Tax would not empower the Department to invoke the provisions of Section 78 of the Act where the bur....

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.... (39) STR 785 (Mad.). 6. After considering the submissions of both the parties and perusal of the material on record, I find that the appellant was liable to pay Service Tax for providing taxable service of health club and fitness service but did not get himself registered with the Service Tax Department and did not file the Returns and when the records of the appellant were verified and a SCN was issued demanding Service Tax of Rs. 20,27,851/- for the period 01.04.2011 to 30.09.2014, the appellant paid only Rs. 1,50,000/- during the course of investigation. After following the due process the original authority confirmed the demand along with interest and also imposed penalty of Rs. 20,27,851/- under Section 78 of the Act. The contention ....