2009 (5) TMI 70

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....cise (Appeals), Mangalore. 2. We heard both sides. 3. The appellant is a franchisee of M/s. UC MAS Mental Arithmetic (India) Pvt. Ltd., Chennai. They conduct mental arithmetic programme for children between 5 to 12 years. The programme used the ancient tool abacus so as to bring interest in children in solving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems in arithmetic. 4. Revenue proceeded against them by issuing show cause notice dated 24.12.2004 for demand of Service Tax under the category of "Commercial Training and Coaching". It was also stated in the show cause notice that the appellants would not be entitled to the benefit of Notification No. 9/2003-ST dated 20.6.2003, as the activities undertaken by them would....

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.... activities of the appellants are considered as coaching or training, the same is exempted vide Notification No. 9/2003-ST dated 20.6.2003 as amended by Notification No.1/2004 dated 4.2.2004. The above Notification had exempted the value of taxable services provided in relation to commercial training or coaching by a vocational training institute, a computer training institute or a recreational training institute from whole of Service Tax. It was stated that generally the students do not like mathematics and lack interest in the same but the method adopted by the appellants creates interest in them for learning mathematics and also to have a liking for it. The mental arithmetic programme fries to teach the concepts in various ways in an eas....

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..... The entire thing is done by employing methods of play so as to make the whole thing interesting. By no means, this activity can be compared with the activities undertaken by commercial coaching or training centre. In terms of the Notification No. 9/2003-ST dated 20.6.2003 as amended and also Notification No. 24/2004-ST dt.10.9.2004, we find that there is a specific exemption provided for recreational training institute and vocational training institute. In our view, the activities of the appellant would more appropriately be classified as recreational. When an activity is done for enjoyment, it is called recreation. Recreation need not be confined to playing some games or watching television. There are a vide variety of activities which c....