Jurisprudentiol – Monday's cases

By Vijay Kumar

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

Mere fact that order of appellate authority is not “acceptable” to department is in itself an objectionable phrase for not following it unless its operation has been suspended by a competent Court - CESTAT

“THE order of the Appellate Collector is binding on the Assistant Collector working within his jurisdiction and the order of the Tribunal is binding upon the Assistant Collectors and Appellate Collectors, who function under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal the principles of judicial discipline require that the orders of the higher appellant authorities should be followed unreservedly by the subordinate authorities. The mere fact that the order of the appellate authority is not “acceptable” to the department, in itself an objectionable phrase and is the subject-matter of an appeal can furnish no ground for not following it unless its operation has been suspended by a competent Court. If this healthy rule is not followed, the result will only be undue harassment to assessee and chaos in administration of tax laws”.

Income Tax

Sec 38 - Assessee claims deduction for full expenditure incurred on repair of roof of large building having many tenants - Deduction should be commensurate with area occupied for purpose of business - Assessee's appeal dismissed: Bombay High Court

THE issue before the Tribunal is - Whether an order under-section 201(1A) is a consequential order of section 201(1) and hence the stay granted by the ITAT in pursuance to a stay application against the demand of Sec 201(1) is equally applicable to section 201(1A) also.

Service Tax

Incidence of levy is on occurrence of event i.e provision of service and event has already occurred before commencement of commercial production on 1.3.1996 – Service Tax demand set aside with consequential relief: CESTAT

THE appellant's grievance in this case is that the entire technology was provided before the commencement of the commercial production i.e 1.3.1996 and hence it could not be converted into ‘Consulting Engineering Services'. It is also submitted that the appellant did not provide any service of the nature described as ‘Consulting Engineering Services' after 7.7.1997 or before that, and hence there shall be no Service tax liability on the appellant.

See our columns Monday for the judgements