M/s STANDARD DRY CLEANERS Vs CCE & ST( DELHI) CESTAT
Appellant registered with department, did not file any ST-3 return up to September 2005 and did not pay any service tax during period April 2004 to December 2005 - demand confirmed along with interest - penalty. appellant contending that since their computer was down they could not deposit service tax and file returns; that since adjudicating authority had waived penalty u/s 76
by referring to s.80 of FA, 1994 penalties under other sections should not have arisen.
Held:
On holistic reading of the Order having imposed penalty u/s 78, penalty u/s 76 was not imposed as it would tantamount to imposing double penalty. Nowhere in the Order , there is even a whisper to the effect that S. 80 ibid has even been considered for the purpose of not imposing penalty u/s 76 - Thus, a mere mention of S. 80 in the order portion is nothing more than an inadvertence & of no consequence - even if the computer was down, the appellant could have filed the return manually and paid service tax by computing the same manually - statutory levies cannot be obviated for so long merely because the computer was down - having not informed the department, bonafide of appellant is not above board - It was only when the raid was conducted and they were caught that they admitted their violations - ingredients for invoking the provisions of Section 78 are conspicuously present in this case and penalty of Rs.1000/- imposed u/s 77 is also obviously imposable
No comments:
Post a Comment