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TMI Blog2018 (3) TMI 508X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ish Chandra, President And Mr. B. Ravichandran, Member ( Technical ) For the Appellant : Sh. Amresh Jain, DR For the Respondents : Sh. Amneesh Kumar, Adv ORDER Per B. Ravichandran The dispute in the present appeal relates to Service Tax liability of the assessee-Respondents under the category of Business Support Services . The assessee-Respondents engaged the services of various doctors as per the agreement/arrangement for medical services in their hospital premises. Entertaining a view that the assessee-Respondents provide infrastructural and administrative support facilities to the visiting doctors consultants, the Revenue proceeded to demand and confirm Service Tax liability. 2. After hearing both sides and on ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , lounge, reception with competent personnel to handle messages, secretarial services, internet and telecom facilities, pantry and security. 5. The claim of the Revenue is that the appellants have provided infrastructural support service to various doctors. As a consideration for such support, they have retained a part of the amount collected from visiting patients. We have perused some of the agreements/appointment arrangements entered into between the appellants hospitals and the individual doctors. Typically, the arrangement contains details like duration of time for consultation, the on the part of the doctors, fee to be paid, procedure for termination of agreement, etc. The agreements generally talk about appointment of consul ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lth care services. This can be done by appointing the required professionals directly as employees. The same can also be done by having contractual arrangements like the present ones. In such arrangement, the doctors of required qualification are engaged/contractually appointed to provide health care services. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. There is a revenue sharing model. The doctor is attending to the patient for treatment using his professional skill and knowledge. The appellants hospitals are managing the patients from the time they enter the hospital till they leave the premises. ID cards are provided, records are maintained, all the supporting assistance are also provided when the patients are in the appellant hospital prem ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Gujarat High Court in Dr KK Shah (supra), though in an income-tax case, we note that there is a discernable difference between business and profession . The Gujarat High Court referred to decision of Hon‟ble Supreme Court in Dr Devender Surtis AIR 1962 SC 63. The Supreme Court observed as below: There is a fundamental distinction between a professional activity and an activity of a commercial character : a profession involves the idea of an occupation requiring either purely intellectual skill, or of manual skill controlled, as in painting and sculpture, of surgery, by the intellectual skill of the operator, as distinguished from an occupation which is substantially the production or sale or arrangements for the prod ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ring diagnosis or treatment of care for illness, injury, deformity, abnormality or pregnancy in any recognized system of medicines in India, or a place established as an independent entity or a part of an establishment to carry out diagnostic or investigative services of diseases. 10. The terms health care services‟ is defined as below: health care services means any service by way of diagnosis or treatment or care for illness, injury, deformity, abnormality or pregnancy in any recognized system of medicines in India and includes services by way of transportation of the patient to and from a clinical establishment but does not include their transplant or cosmetic or plastic surgery, except when undertaken to restor ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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