TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (8) TMI 797
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.... Allahabad by which the appeal was rejected and the demand of Service Tax has been confirmed under the proviso to Section 73(1) of the Finance Act, 1994 with interest and penalty. The details of the two Service Tax Appeals are as follows:- Appeal No. ST/70251/2022 ST/70831/2025 Impugned Order No. & Date 361/ST/Alld/2021 Dt:02.12.2021 97/ST/Appl/Alld/2025 Dt:26.06.2025 Show Cause Notice Date 24.10.2019 06.07.2021 Period of dispute April,2014 to March, 2015 April,2015 to June,2017 Service Tax Demand Rs.17,60,474/- Rs.98,72,561/- 2. As the Appellant is common in both the appeals and the issues involved are identical, it is considered appropriate to dispose of both the appeals by this common order. 3. Briefly stated, the facts of the case are that the Appellant had taken Service Tax registration as a service provider for "Clearing and forwarding Agent Services" in the name of "M/s. J.P. Logistics" and providing GTA services in the name of "M/s. Trident Perishable Food Carriers" Proprietor : Shri Manav Verma with the same PAN. The Service Tax Registration of Appellant is AAJPV5363NSD002. 4. Since "Clearing and Forwarding Agent Servic....
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....mply with the statutory filing requirements. 8. Being aggrieved by the Order-in-Original, the Appellant preferred an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals), Allahabad. The learned Commissioner (Appeals), vide Order-in-Appeal dated 02.12.2021 for the financial year 2014-15, partly allowed the appeal. The Commissioner (Appeals), upon examining the Agreement entered into with M/s. Mother Dairy, held that the services rendered by the Appellant thereunder were classifiable as Goods Transport Agency [GTA] Services. However, the Commissioner (Appeals) declined to extend the same finding to the services provided to M/s. Vadilal, holding that such services did not fall within the ambit of GTA Services. Consequently, the Service Tax demand was reduced from Rs.26,28,838/- to Rs.17,60,474/-. 9. The other appeal for the period April, 2015 to June, 2017 was rejected vide Order-in-Appeal dated 26.06.2025, without granting any relief to the Appellant. The Appellant is therefore before us by way of these two appeals. 10. Sri Kartikeya Narain, learned Counsel for the Appellant, submitted that the Appellant had duly discharged the Service Tax liability on all its taxable services, namely, ....
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.... from the Income Tax Department. No independent verification of Books of Accounts, invoices or nature of transactions was conducted by the Department before alleging tax liability. Demand arises merely on presumptions, assumptions and Income Tax data and is thus, legally unsustainable. Reliance was placed on the following decisions: - a) M/s A.P. Construction & Suppliers Vs. Commissioner of Central Excise & CGST, Noida 2026 (2) TMI 527- CESTAT Allahabad; (Being Service Tax Appeal No.70624 of 2025 in Final Order No.70002/2026 dated 07.01.2026). b) M/s Mamta Advertisers Vs. Commissioner of Central Excise & Service Tax, Lucknow 2025 (7) TMI 1143 - CESTAT ALLAHABAD; (Being Service Tax Appeal No.70214 of 2024 in Final Order No.70499/2025 dated 18.07.2025). 15. Ld. Authorized Representative for the Revenue reiterated the findings recorded in the impugned order and prayed that the appeal filed by the Appellant, being devoid of any merits, may be dismissed. 16. Heard both the sides and perused the appeal records. 17. Having considered the rival submissions and upon careful perusal of the records available before us, we find that the first issue requiring determin....
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.... this issue is that no consignment notes have been raised. They have relied upon the ratio in the case of South Eastern Coal Fields Ltd. v. CCE, Raipur [2016 (41) S.T.R. 636 (Tri.-Del.)] where issue of consignment note has been held as a non-derogable ingredient for falling under GTA. But the fact remains that consignment notes can be issued in any form, as seen from definition of GTA in Section 65(50)(b) of the Finance Act, 1994; "goods transport agency" means any person who provides service in relation to transport of goods and issues consignment note, by whatever name called (emphasis added). In the Appeal No. ST/341/2011, sample vouchers/invoices have been made available, where the truck number, amount and load have been described. In the instant cases, the assessees are the service recipients for which they are paying the freight charges. When it is so, then we are of the view that the Department has rightly applied GTA and demanded the service tax for the reason that without an accompanying paper/document, goods cannot be received without which is the basis of amount for payment. This is also the view taken by the Tribunal in U.P. State Sugar Corporation v. CCE, Meerut-II [20....
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.... the service recipients is bad in law and the same is not sustainable. Further, We find that the Appellant has been regularly filing the ST-3 returns and was issued the SCNs consecutively for the year 2015-16, 2016-17 & 2017-18 (till June, 2017).We also find that all the necessary information were available to the Department on the basis of which first SCN was issued, and the Department should have issued the subsequent SCN for the normal period and thus a subsequent SCN invoking the extended period of limitation alleging suppression of facts is not sustainable. The Ld. Commissioner (Appeals) has not addressed this issue of limitation in his order and it is totally silent on limitation. We also find that the Hon'ble Supreme Court, Hon'ble High Courts and the Tribunal have already examined this issue time and again and held that allegation of suppression of facts against the assessee could not be sustained if all the relevant facts were in the knowledge of the Department. We also find that the Appellant was regularly filing ST-3 returns and therefore while issuing second SCN, the same/similar facts could not be taken as suppression of facts on the part of the Appellant as these fact....