TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (4) TMI 374
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....018 are taken up. 2. Briefly as per the allegation of the Department, M/s Rajesh Kumar & Associates are engaged in providing taxable service covered under the category of "Renting of Immovable Property Services" falling under Section 65 (105) (zzzz) of Finance Act, 1994 as it existed prior to 01.07.2012 and in terms of Section 66B of the Act read with Section 65B (41) and Section 65(B) (44) of the Act as it existed w.e.f. 01.07.2012; appeared to have contravened the provisions of section 68, 69 and 70 of the Act read with Rules 4, 5, 6 & 7 of the Service Tax Rules, 1994, in as much as they had neither applied for registration nor discharged their service tax liability for the said services and did not file any service tax returns for the relevant period. 2.1 During the course of audit of M/s Food Corporation of India, Bathinda by the internal audit party, it was observed that they had hired the godowns from M/s Punjab State Warehouse Corporation (hereinafter referred to as 'PSWC'). On enquiry from PSWC, it was revealed that they had further hired godowns of private parties and the appellant was among them. Accordingly, show cause notice proposing recovery of service t....
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....ial of Small-scale Exemption to various co-owners of the property. He further submits that it has been wrongly held in the adjudication order that the property is eligible only for Small Scale Exemption and the co-owners are not separately eligible for the benefit of Small Scale Exemption vide Notification No. 33/2012. 4.2 On the other hand, learned authorized representative for the department, reiterated the findings of the impugned order. 5. We have considered the submissions of both the parties and perused the material on record, we find that the only issue involved in the present case is whether the co-owners are individually entitled to SSI exemption under Notification No. 6/2005-ST dated 01.03.2025 in the capacity of each co-owner. Further, we find that in the present case each co-owner is the owner of their respective share in the property and the contract entered with PSWC is on behalf of all the co-owner and the PSWC is paying rent to each co-owner separately and the same is not disputed by the Department. Further, the PSWC deducts the TDS under the PAN number of each co-owner separately in respect of the payments made to them. The identical issue was considered by t....
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....lity and imposition of penalties without telling any legal basis for doing so. The appellants have contested the Order in Original mainly on the grounds that rented property belongs to four separate persons (all brothers) but the service tax has been demanded wrongly by the department from the appellants by clubbing the rent received by all the co-owners and, therefore, the demand off tax is not maintainable on this ground alone. In support they have produced a City Survey Extract as evidence regarding ownership of the rented property which shows that the said property was purchased in 2003 and is owned jointly by all the four co-owners. Further, the lease agreements with M/s. Max New York Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Oriental Bank of Commerce, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Standard Life Insurance Ltd. are also entered into by the appellants in their individual capacity, as per SCN also, all four co-owners have obtained separate Registration Certificate on 10-4-2012 and all the four co-owners individually paid their Service tax liability along with interest on 14-2-2012. Thus, the ownership of the Property and providing of taxable renting of immovable Property by the four app....
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....ted investigation, but it is not supported by any evidence or the facts on record. The SCN or the OIO do not talk of any audit objection or Preventive action or any Inspection etc. on the basis of which not payment of service tax by the appellants was pointed out. Instead in the SCN, one statement of Shri Chandulal Vishrambhai Patel is only referred to which was recorded on 22-2-2012 which is 8 days after the appellants had paid service tax along with interest on their own. Thus, the claim of the appellant that they had paid service tax for the years 2009-10 and 2010-11 on their own initiative and there was no suppression of facts etc. on their part with any intention to evade service tax cannot be denied. Considering all these facts, I agree with the appellant's contention that this case was squarely covered under sub-section (3) of Section 73 which provided not to issue any notice under sub-section (1) of Section 73 if the service tax not levied or paid was paid along with interest by the person concerned before service of notice on him and informed the Central Excise Officer of such payment in writing. Further in Explanation 2 of the said sub section, it is also clearly provided....