Jurisprudentiol-Friday's cases

By Vijay Kumar

Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Service Tax

ST - Demand of service tax in respect of same transaction on ground that deposit of service tax was under different category whereas different category of service has been provided cannot be held to be justifiable - Appeal allowed: CESTAT

THE appellant entered into an agreement with KPH Dream Cricket Pvt. Ltd. for sponsoring the cricket team Kings XI Punjab. On the said contractual consideration, a service tax of Rs.37,08,000/- was collected by M/s KPH from the appellant and deposited with the Central Government under the category of Business Auxiliary Service. This is the factual position and there is no dispute.

Nonetheless, at a later date, the Revenue entertained a view that the agreement between the appellant and M/s KPH was falling under the category of "Sponsorship Service" and, as such, the tax liability falls on the appellant on reverse charge basis.

Income Tax

Whether when assessee is under investigation, Revenue is legally right in collecting cheque payments towards future tax demand in order to protect its own interest - NO: HC

THE assessee is a trading company. The assessee filed the present petition on the ground that the Revenue without passing any assessment order and ordering a definite tax demand, had recovered three cheques totalling to Rs.3,08,50,688 from the assessee. The Counsel of the assessee urged the court to direct the Revenue to return the said cheques to the assessee. Whereas the Counsel of the Revenue submitted that the adjudication proceedings were already initiated and show-cause notices were also issued, thus to protect the interest of the Revenue, it had found on investigation that the assessees would be liable to pay the amount of Rs.3,08,50,688/- including the penalty. Therefore, in the larger public interest, the cheques were recovered. However, there was no final assessment order or provisional assessment order passed.

The issue before the Bench is - Whether when the assessee is under investigation, Revenue is legally right in collecting cheque payments towards future tax demand in order to protect its own interest. NO is the verdict.

Central Excise

Appeals filed by Revenue on basis of an invalid Review authorization deserve to be dismissed as not maintainable: CESTAT

THIS is a Revenue appeal against the order passed by Commissioner of Central Excise Ahmedabad-II dropping the allegations levelled in the show cause notice.

The primary ground taken by the Revenue is that adjudicating authority has only commented on the aspect of what ought to have been done by the investigation rather than appreciating the evidences available on record.

The respondent submitted that in the Cross objections they had raised the preliminary objection that the appeals filed by the Revenue are not maintainable as the competent Committee of Chief Commissioners signing the authorization is not the Committee as constituted by the Central Government in terms of Notification No.24/2005-CE(NT), dt.13.05.2005. The case was also argued on merits with the help of various case laws to support the view taken by the adjudicating authority.

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