Jurisprudentiol –Tuesday's cases

By Vijay Kumar

Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Central Excise

Preventive officers fall in Molasses Pit – Furious Tribunal marks a copy of the order to the FM, Rev Secretary, CBEC Chairman for appropriate action against the officers.

IT is normal tendency of the revenue officers to issue show cause notice at the drop of the hat. The popular belief is that by doing so, they have nothing to lose. It is the headache of the assessee to contest the demand however ridiculous it may be.

But, every story does not end on the expected lines. In a strange turn of events, in a recent case, the CESTAT upheld the demand on merits, but was unhappy with the inaction on the part of the preventive officers and suggested appropriated action against them.

Income Tax

Sec 80I - Is assessee entitled to Ss 80HH and 80I benefits even if it only modernises existing unit - NO, says HC

THE issue before the High Court is - Whether the assessee established a new industrial unit in the present assessment year (AY), and even if new Industrial Unit was not established and the assessee only modernized the existing unit and erected new plant and machineries whether the assessee was entitled to claim deduction u/s 80HH and 80I . And the answer is NO.

Service Tax

Passing of revision order by the jurisdictional Commissioner after passage of Order-in-Appeal by Commissioner(Appeals) – embarrassing to declare exercise of jurisdiction by one Commissioner as good and another bad – Revisionary order bad in law: CESTAT

IN a Service Tax matter, the first appellate authority passed an order on 16.04.2009 and since it was favourable to the assessee, they did not file any appeal before the CESTAT.

Incidentally, the department was not happy with the order-in-original passed by the lower adjudicating authority and this they sought to rectify by invoking the provisions of section 84 of the Finance Act, 1994. So, in furtherance of the revisionary proceedings, the Commissioner on 16.06.2009 issued a show cause notice proposing to impose a penalty on the appellant invoking provisions of sections 76 and 78 of the Finance Act, 1994. This resulted in passing of a revisionary order.

See our columns Tomorrow for the judgements