Service Tax - Axis Bank Appeal restored by CESTAT
WE have been closely following this ST case of Axis Bank Ltd. for the past few months.
A quick re-cap: THE short facts were that the applicant had availed the services of Non-Resident service providers, who did not have offices in India and they had paid certain fees/charges to such non-resident service providers for facilitating issue of Global Depository Shares (GDS). Revenue took a view that the service is taxable and classifiable under the category of Banking and Other Financial Services as Merchant Banking Services and the person liable for payment of service tax is the person receiving the taxable service in India. The Show Cause Notice demanding Service Tax of Rs.1.67 Crores dt. 13.1.2009 was confirmed by the CST, Mumbai-I along with equivalent penalty and interest.
The CESTAT had while deciding the Stay petition (2012-TIOL-1513-CESTAT-MUM) adverted to the decision in Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd. (2012-TIOL-199-CESTAT-DEL) and directed the applicant to deposit an amount of Rs. 50,00,000/- (Rupees fifty lakhs only) within a period of eight weeks and report compliance on 3rd December, 2012."
The case was called for hearing on 3rd December, 2012 by the CESTAT, WZB at Mumbai.
Since there was no compliance reported by the appellant, the Bench dismissed the appeal.
Incidentally, an early hearing application was moved by the appellant on the ground that the ST demand involved is more than Rs.1 Crore and this application came up for hearing on 11.12.2012.
On this day, the Bench perused the records and found that the appeal itself had been dismissed for non-compliance of the Stay order.
At this point the Consultant for the appellant informed the Bench that they had made the pre-deposit of Rs.50 lakhs on 26.10.2012, well before the compliance date.
Noting that there was an error in the order dismissing the appeal, the Bench recalled its order dated 03.12.2012 () and after restoring the appeal to its original number fixed the case for final hearing on 12.03.2013.
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