TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2023 (7) TMI 300
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....vat credit of service tax paid on rail freight. 2. The brief facts are that the appellant was engaged in the manufacture of cement, and availed the services of West Central Railway [WCR] division of Indian Railways, for transportation of their finished goods from the plant to their depots/Godowns/ Warehouses. With effect from 1.10.2012, transportation of goods by Rail was brought under the service tax net and Indian Railways charged and collected service tax on transportation services on the value of total freight, less abatement, as per Board's Circular no. 27/2012-ST dated 26.09.2012. The WCR charged and collected service tax on the rail freight amount from the appellant. At the time of consigning the goods, WCR issued one copy of the ra....
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....lding that the insertion of clause (fa) in Rule 9(1) would apply prospectively. The appellant filed an appeal before the Tribunal which vide its final order dated 03.11.2017, set aside the order in appeal dated 19.11.2015 and remanded the matter to the adjudicating authority with directions to examine the supporting documents submitted by the appellant and its eligibility for claiming such credit. The adjudicating authority after considering the submissions of the appellant, denied the CENVAT credit observing that STTG [Service Tax Certificate for transportation of goods by Rail] certificate and the photocopies of the RRs were notified to be proper documents only with effect from 27.8.2014. Therefore, the RRs issued for the relevant period ....
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....t the practice of availment of Cenvat credit on the basis of MCC was in line with the clarification issued by the Ministry of Railways (Railway Board) vide Rate Circular No. 27 dated 26.9.2012. 4.1 In support of his submissions, he placed reliance on the decision of the Gujarat High Court in the case of CCE, Vadodara II vs Steelco Gujarat Ltd [2010 (255) ELT (518) Guj.]. He further stated that the Courts have held that CENVAT credit availed on the strength of RRs photocopy authenticated by certificates issued by Railways are valid documents in terms of rule 9 of the Credit Rules, while taking note of clause (fa) inserted to rule 9(1) specifying STTG certificate along with photocopies to be prescribed document under the said rule. 5. The A....
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....ppeals) has not doubted the veracity of the MCCs & STTG certificate submitted by the appellant in support of their claim. In order to satisfy the objection of the department, the appellant has once again placed on record the re-revised STTG certificate dated 31.12.2022 issued by WCR to authenticate the certified copy of RRs in accordance with law. A conjoint reading of the documents placed before us indicate that they contain the following details: (i) Serial number of the order. (ii) Name of the service provider. (iii) Registration no of the service provider. (iv) Name and address of the service recipient. (v) Description of services. (vi) Value of services. (vii) Service tax payable thereon. 7.1 All these details are corrob....
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....whether or not documents evidencing the payments of service tax are in right format as per the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2004. We note that the government specifically inserted that documents issued by the Railways in the form of STTG also form eligible bases. The revenue viewed that these documents are valid only from the date of amendment. We are not in agreement with such proposition. The list of documents which are required are given in rule 9(1). It is also to be noted that the jurisdictional Asst Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner has the discretion in terms of proviso to Rule 9(2) of the said rules to allow the credit if the documents produced contains details of duty or service tax payable, description of the goods or the taxable service, ....