2021 (4) TMI 819

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.... 2. The petitioner is an University established by the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University Act, 1990. The second respondent issued notice dated 23.10.2018 calling upon the petitioner University to show cause as to why certain sums of money should not be paid by them towards service tax. It was also proposed to levy interest and penalty on the said principal amount. The show cause notice alleges that the petitioner had been collecting affiliation fees, inspection fees and other fees etc. from the affiliated colleges and charges by way of renting of immovable properties. The stand of the authority is that the University has been rendering service to the affiliated colleges also. Therefore, the fees collected by the University ought to have b....

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....ompulsory levy and depositing the same into the Government account. The activities performed by the petitioner University is in the nature of statutory obligation. 7. Be that as it may, the fee collected by the petitioner will be in the nature of compulsory levy as per the provisions of the relevant statute. The petitioner University was established by legislation. Section 24(16) of the said statute enables the Syndicate of the University to prescribe the fees to be charged for the approval and affiliation of colleges, for admission to the examinations, degrees, titles and diplomas of the University, for the registration of graduates, for the renewal of such registration and for all or any of the purposes specified in Section 4. 8. Th....

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....laneous petitions are closed. ============= Document 1 F.No. 255/1/2006-CX.4 Government of India Ministry of Finance Department of Revenue Circular No. 89/7/2006- ST Dated: 18th December, 2006 (Central Board of Excise and Customs) Subject: Applicability of service tax on fee collected by Public Authorities while performing statutory functions/duties under the provisions of a law regarding A number of sovereign/public authorities (i.e. an agency constituted/set up by government) perform certain functions/ duties, which are statutory in nature. These functions are performed in terms of specific responsibility assigned to them under the law in force. For examples, the Regional Reference Standards Labora....

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....constitute provision of taxable service to a person and, therefore, no service tax is leviable on such activities. 3. However, if such authority performs a service, which is not in the nature of statutory activity and the same is undertaken for a consideration not in the nature of statutory fee/levy, then in such cases, service tax would be leviable, if the activity undertaken falls within the ambit of a taxable service. Document 2 12. Reference Code (1) 999.01/ 23.08.07 Issue (2) Sovereign/public authorities perform functions assigned to them under the law in force, known as "statutory functions". For example, Regional Reference Standards Laboratories (RRSL) undertake verification,....