2024 (12) TMI 1242

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....ct 1994 along with interest and penalty was confirmed. 2. The appellant is engaged in providing telecommunication service, renting of immovable property service etc. having service tax registration in various locations. Later on they obtained the centralised registration at Chennai on 7.5.2015. 3. During the course of audit, it was noticed that the appellant had availed legal services by engaging advocates and paid legal fees but did not pay the service tax under Reverse Charge Mechanism (RCM). The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited a corporate body, is liable to discharge the service tax liability with effect from 01.07.2012 on such legal services provided by the lawyers as the recipient of service under Reverse Charge Mechanism in terms o....

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....cision of the Delhi High Court in Delhi Bar Association where it has been observed that if any client has failed to make payment of the corresponding service tax on Reverse Charge basis, it would be open to the department to proceed against such clients to recover the service tax in accordance with law, the Adjudicating Authority confirmed the demand of duty amounting to Rs.5,27,554/- along with interest under Section 75 and penalty of the same amount under Section 76 and penalty of Rs.10,000/- for contravention of the various provisions of the Act. The appellant challenged the said order before the Commissioner (Appeals), however instead of appearing and contesting the appeal, the appellant submitted a letter informing that they agreed to ....

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....ng none appeared on behalf of the appellant instead a letter was submitted whereby they agreed to discharge the service tax liability and also deposited the aggregate amount towards the confirmed demand and penalties. In view of the stand taken by the appellant before the Adjudicating Authority as well as before the Commissioner (Appeals), it is evident that they had virtually accepted the service tax liability. Now in the appeal filed before this Tribunal, several new grounds have been taken which were not raised before either of the authorities below. It appears that in view of these additional grounds subsequently a miscellaneous application was filed on 14.11.2024 raising the following grounds. (i) Lack of jurisdiction to issue....

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....ow Cause Notices. (iii) As multiple Show Cause Notices were issued, the Adjudicating Authority was incompetent to decide the case in view of the provisions of para 2 of the Circular no.1049/37/2016 - CX. The Show Cause Notices were required to be adjudicated by the Adjudicating Authority involving the highest amount of duty and in the present case the highest amount of service tax was Rs.4,76,492/- which was the subject matter of the Show Cause Notices dated 14.03.2016 issued by the Chennai Commissionerate, hence they were only competent to adjudicate the multiple Show Cause Notices issued by different authorities. The Show Cause Notices issued by the Assistant Commissioner were required to be adjudicated by an officer of the rank ....