TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (9) TMI 1252
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....and not by the port or any person authorized by the port, was unsustainable. The issue was thus found in favour of the appellant and the rejection of refund on this ground was set aside. 2. The Department on this issue approached the Hon'ble High Court against the above said Final order of the Tribunal. The Hon'ble High Court vide judgement in C.M.A. No. 690 of 2019 dated 28.01.2020 remanded the matter to the Tribunal to re-consider this issue pertaining to the refund claim of Service Tax paid on port services. The relevant paragraph of the Order of the Hon'ble High Court is reproduced as under: " The Revenue has filed this appeal against the order of the learned CESTAT dated 01.05.2018. The limited ground on which the present appeal is pressed by the learned Senior Standing Counsel for the Revenue Mr. V. Sundareswaran is as discussed by the learned Tribunal in Paragraph 5(i) of the impugned order. Though the Coordinate Bench of this Court had admitted the appeal on 31.01.2019 on four substantial questions of law, the only question pressed by the learned Senior Standing Counsel for the Revenue is Question No.(a), which reads as follows:- "(a) Whether the Tribun....
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....nt that the only ground alleged in the Show Cause Notice for rejecting the claim for refund in regard to Port Services is that the invoices for payment of Service Tax have been issued by the CHA and that the CHA is not registered for providing Port Services. He referred to Sl. No. 2 of the said Notification and submitted that in Notification No. 41/2007-S.T., though the classification of service is mentioned as Section 65(105)(zn) of the Finance Act, 1994, the description of service is simply shown as "services provided for export of said goods." That as per the Notification, there is no requirement that the services are to be provided by the port or any person authorized by the port in respect of export of goods. Such requirement came to be introduced in the subsequent Notification, which is Notification No. 17/2009-S.T. dated 07.07.2009. That the Tribunal after taking note of this fact has correctly applied the decision in the case of M/s. SRF Ltd. (supra) wherein it has been held that the requirement in the subsequent Notification No. 17/2009-S.T. cannot be pressed into application to deny the refund. 3.2 Before the Hon'ble High Court even though the Department has raised the....
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....effect from 01.07.2010. 7.1 The definition of "taxable service" as contained in Section 65(105)(zn) reads as under: "to any person, by any other person, in relation to port services in a port, in any manner" Prior to 01.07.2010, the said definition read as under: "to any person by a port or any person authorized by the port, in relation to port services, in any manner" 7.2.1 From the above, it can be seen that prior to 30.06.2010, the definition of "Port Services" was such that only services rendered by a port or any person authorized by such port would come within the purview of taxable service. However, while giving the description of port services in Notification No. 41/2007-S.T. (supra), this description has not been adopted. The description of taxable services given in the Notification in regard to Port Services is "services provided for export of said goods". The requirement that the services have to be provided by a port or any person authorized by the port has been included in the description of port service in the subsequent Notification No. 17/2009-S.T. dated 07.07.2009. It would be more clear if the relevant portion of the Schedule of the Notif....
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....on of the Revenue that documents should evidence payment of Service Tax for specified service, namely, Port Service, was negated by the Tribunal by referring to the clarification issued by the C.B.E.C. vide Circular No. 112/6/2009-S.T. dated 12.03.2009. The relevant portion of the said Circular is reproduced as under: S. No. Issue Raised Clarification VII The Service provider providing services to the exporter provides various services. But he has registration of only one service. The refund is being denied on the grounds that the taxable services that are not covered under the registration are not eligible for such refunds. Notification No. 41/2007-S.T. provides exemption by way of refund from specified taxable services used for export of goods. Granting refund to exporters, on taxable services that he receives and uses for export do not require verification of registration certificate of the supplier of service. Therefore, refund should be granted in such cases, if otherwise in order. The procedural violations by the service provider need to be dealt separately, independent of the process of refund. The Tribunal discussed that the above clarification issued b....