By Puloma Dalal, Jayesh Gogri, Mandar Telang, Chartered Accountants
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New grounds cannot be taken in the revisionary SCN issued by Commissioner.
Facts:
Original adjudicating authority sanctioned refund of terminal handling charges and repo charges. However, Commissioner started proceedings to revise the order issued by the original adjudicating authority and after issuing SCN, refund was held to be sanctioned wrongly vide Commissioner’ order on the ground that the appellants were providing services which were not specified in Notification No. 41/2007-ST dated 06-10-2007. The appellants contested that the SCN issued by the Commissioner for revision u/s. 84 travelled beyond the SCN issued by the original adjudicating authority and therefore, Commissioner’s order was liable to be dropped. However, as per revenue, the Commissioner relied on the same documents as were verified by the original adjudicating authority and reached the conclusion that the services were not specified in the said notification.
Held:
Relying on the decisions of Viacom Electronics (P) Ltd. vs. CCE Vadodara 2002 (145) ELT 563 (Tri.-Mum.), Aero Products vs. CST Bangalore 2011 (22) STR 522 (Tri.-Bang.) and Sands Hotel Pvt. Ltd. vs. CST, Mumbai 2009 (16) STR 329 (Tri.-Mum.), the Tribunal held that new ground cannot be taken in the revisionary SCN. In the present case, the original SCN was based on insufficient documentation for grant of refund, however, the revisionary SCN was on a totally new ground about ineligibility to claim refund and therefore, the appeal was allowed.
