Jurisprudentiol – Monday's cases

By Vijay Kumar

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

Whether interlocutory orders passed by CESTAT are appealable to HC - Matter referred to Larger Bench.

RECENTLY, Madras High Court was disposing a number of Writ Petitions filed against the Interlocutory orders of the Tribunal directing the appellants to pre-deposit certain amount as pre-condition for hearing the main appeals under Section 35-F of the Central Excise Act, 1944 or Section 129-E of the Customs Act, 1962. During the course of proceedings, the Bench noted that there is lot of confusion on the issue of whether such orders are appealable under respective Acts or should be challenged by way of a Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The High Court directed the Registry to place the matter before the Chief Justice for referring the matter to an appropriate Bench for deciding the issue as to whether the order passed by the CESTAT in terms of Section 35-F or the Excise Act or Section 129-E of the Customs Act is appealable in terms of Section 35-G of the Excise Act or Section 130 of the Customs Act.

Income Tax

Whether additional reasons recorded after date of issuance of notice u/s 148 can be looked into for purposes of determining validity of proceedings initiated u/s 14 & - NO: Delhi HC

THE issues before the Bench are - Whether additional reasons recorded after the date of issuance of notice u/s 148 can be looked into for the purposes of determining the validity of the proceedings initiated u/s 147; Whether until and unless, there was an addition on the basis of the original reasons, no other additions could be made in view of the expression "and also" used in Explanation 3 to Section 147; Whether the validity of the proceedings initiated upon a notice u/s 148 have to be judged from the stand point of the reasons which existed at the point of time, when the Section 148 notice was issued; Whether it is permissible for the AO to conjure up a different set of reasons by combining the original reasons and the additional reasons, recorded sometime later after the issuance of notice u/s 148 and Whether the AO is supposed to be fair to the Department as also to the assessee and to be honest to the record. And the verdict goes in favour of the assessee.

Service Tax

IPO financing fees, Processing fees and Recovery of common expenses from co-user of premises are not leviable to Service Tax under BAS or BSS category - Appeal allowed: CESTAT

COMMISSIONER of Service Tax, Mumbai has confirmed a Service Tax demand of more than rupees Five crores and the accompanying penalties and interest. Inasmuch as it is held that the services rendered by the applicant are leviable to Service Tax under the category of "Business Auxiliary Services" and "Business Support Services". The Department demanded Service Tax on:- IPO Financing Fees, Processing fee, Recovery of Common expenses.

See our Columns Monday for the judgements