KAMARAJ COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY Vs. SUPERINTENDENT, OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF CENTRAL GST & CENTRAL EXCISE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has filed this Writ Petition seeking for issuance of a Writ of Ceritorarified Mandamus, to quash the File comprising O.C. No. 271/2019, dtd. 3/5/2019, on the file of the first respondent and forbear the respondents herein from taking any further action till the outcome of the decision by the Hon'ble CESTAT Tribunal, Chennai, in the Appeal filed by the petitioner in S.T.42291/2018.

(2.) Mr. Vijay Karthikeyan, learned Senior Standing counsel takes notice for the respondents. By consent of both parties, the Writ Petition is taken up for final disposal at the admission stage itself.

(3.) The case of the petitioner College is that it is affiliated to Anna University and providing education to the Students in the field of Engineering. In addition to the activities of conducting regular classes in relation to engineering courses, the petitioner College is also providing/conducting training/coaching classes to the students, namely, Entrepreneurship Development Course, Placement Training Program and Personality Development Program and were charging and collecting certain fees for the said courses. It appears that the same is classifiable under 'Commercial Training or Coaching Services' and is subjected to levy of service tax prior to 1/7/2012 and that from 1/7/2012 it is leviable to service tax under the category of ''services'' and therefore, a show cause notice, dtd. 19/10/2015, was issued to the petitioner to show cause as to why an amount of Rs.93,48,500.00 being the amount of service tax not paid on the value of taxable service of Rs.7,83,06,225.00, charged and collected towards the activities classified under the category of 'Commercial Training or Coaching Service'. Thereafter, the petitioner submitted a detailed reply to the same on 5/4/2016 and written submissions on 22/2/2017. Subsequently, the adjudicating authority in the Order-in-Original No. MDU-ST-JC-05-2017, dtd. 28/3/2017, after due process of law, had dropped the entire proceedings initiated in the show cause notice No. 21/2015-ST, dtd. 19/10/2015. Aggrieved by the said dropping order, the Department filed an appeal and the appellate authority, vide order dtd. 4/7/2018, had partially allowed the appeal and set aside the Order-in-Original, dtd. 28/3/2017 and remitted the case back to the original adjudicating authority for the limited purpose of (i) quantification of service tax liability for the above period for which demand has been confirmed; (ii) confirming the demand of interest; and (iii) imposing penalties under various Ss. of the Finance Act, 1994, as proposed in the show cause notice No. 21/2015-ST, dtd. 19/10/2015. Aggrieved by the said order, the petitioner College had preferred an appeal before the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal [CESTAT], Chennai, vide Appeal No. ST/42291/2018, after depositing the pre-deposit amount of 10% as required by the statute and the same is pending.