NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY COUNCIL Vs. CCE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Appellant are an Institution recognized by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science and Technology and according to them they are engaged only in Scientific and Technical consultancy for which they took regionwise service tax registration. In Punjab they took the Service tax registration for Scientific and technical consultancy on 12/09/01. A show cause notice dated 18/03/04 was issued to the Appellant alleging that during period from October 1998 to July 2001 they provided Management Consultancy service to their clients for which they received a total amount of Rs. 82,89,442/ - and demanding service tax amounting to Rs. 4,14,472/ - under 'Management Consultancy' on this amount, alongwith interest and also proposing imposition of penalty on them. The jurisdictional Deputy Commissioner, vide order -in -original dated 11/10/01 dropped the proceedings against the Appellant holding that all the services provided by the Appellant are, in general, technical in nature and these services cannot be classified as Management Consultancy service. The order dated 11/10/01 was, however, reviewed by the Commissioner vide the impugned order -in -review dated 31/03/06 by which the duty demand amounting to Rs. 4,14,472/ - alongwith interest was confirmed against the Appellant, penalty of Rs. 4,14,472/ - was imposed under Section 78 and besides this penalties were also imposed under Section 76 and 75A.

(2.) HEARD both the sides.

(3.) ON going through the projects listed in Annexure A & B to the show cause notice, we find that except for 8 projects out of total of 223 projects, all these projects relate to: