2024 (6) TMI 850

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.... 2. The appellant M/s The Karur Vysya Bank Limited (KVB) are registered under the provisions of the Finance Act 1994 (FA 1994) and are providing service under the category of 'Banking and other Financial Services'. During the course of audit of the accounts and scrutiny of trial balances for the year 2009-10, by departmental officers, it was noticed that the service provider had collected amounts from the customer for renting the service of safe deposit locker/ vault under the head 'locker caution deposit'. As per section 67(3) of FA 1994, the gross amount charged for taxable services shall include any amount received towards taxable service before during or after the provision of such service. The Audit party found that although KVB colle....

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....of Revenue. 4. The learned counsel for the appellant has stated that the 'locker caution deposit' is a capital receipt, which is repayable to the customer when the locker account gets closed. Hence the bank is not providing any service for the said deposit. As per RBI guidelines in master circular dated 01/07/2009, the procedure is permissible to all banks in India to cover the charges for breaking open the locker in case of an eventuality. However, it is not mandatorily collected from all customers and the imposition of tax liability is unjustified and untenable in law. The Commissioner Appeals failed to give them an opportunity to produce the necessary documents evidencing the amount which was actually refunded when a locker was closed....

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....t the appellant had not taken the plea of the amount being a refundable deposit and produced proof of the same before the Original Authority. They sought to take it up at the first Appellate stage, but did not succeed. Hence clear evidence could not be examined by the Original Authority to ensure that the deposit is actually refunded in full and no amount retained by the appellant towards locker hiring charges. This needs to be verified. The general principle is that the Appellate Tribunal should not travel outside the record of the Lower Authority and should not take any new evidence in appeal proceedings. Rule 23 of the Customs Excise Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1982 states that the parties to the appeal shall not be....