G.M. TELECOM, BSNL Vs. CCE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appeal is being taken up with the stay petition as the appeal is also listed for regular hearing. appellant filed this appeal against the order in appeal passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) whereby the interest was demanded in respect of the service tax, which was paid late.

(2.) THE contention of the appellant is that prior to September 2000, the appellants were the Department of Government of India. They are collecting telecom charges along with the service tax from their customers and Page 85 amounts were deposited in the account, i.e. under the head telecom receipt on day -to -day basis. Prior to October 1998, the service tax is to be paid through book adjustment from the account of telecom receipt and, thereafter, the appellant deposited the service tax after withdrawing the amount from telecom receipt. The contention is in the present case that the amount in respect of service tax duly collected from their customers were regularly deposited along with telephone charges in the telecom receipts. As the amount of service tax was deposited in the account of Central Government Department and on pointing out by the Revenue by way of issuing a show cause notice, the amount of service tax was duly deposited in appropriate account relates to service tax. The contention is that as the amount is already deposited in the account of Central Government, i.e. Telecom receipt, therefore, the appellants are not liable to pay any interest in respect of the service tax. The appellants relied upon the following decision of the tribunal.

(3.) THE contention of the Revenue is that appellants cannot take advantage being a government department and the liability to pay interest is there as appellant paid the service tax after the due dates. The Revenue relied upon the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Commissioner of Trade Tax, Lucknow v. Kanhai Jrai Thekedar . The Revenue also submitted that all the assesses are to be treated on the same footing and the appellant being Government of India Department, cannot be treated as the different assessee. As the appellant had paid service tax after the due date and this fact is not denied by the appellant, therefore, as per the provisions of Section 75 of the Finance Act, appellants are liable to pay interest upto the date of deposit of service tax. The Revenue also relied upon the decision of the Tribunal in the case of G.M. Telecom BSNL v. Commissioner of Central Excise, Chandigarh reported in 2003 (160) ELT 318 (Tri -Del.) to submit that the book adjustment in respect of service tax is only upto October, 1998.