Home Case Index All Cases Service Tax Service Tax + AT Service Tax - 2013 (4) TMI AT This
Forgot password New User/ Regiser ⇒ Register to get Live Demo
2013 (4) TMI 428 - CESTAT NEW DELHISponsorship of the IPL matches - whether the service falls within the exclusionary clause of Section 65 (105) (zzzn) of the Finance Act, 1994 - Held that:- On a true and fair analysis of the sponsorship agreement, that the sponsorship agreement is in relation to cricket tournaments conducted under the auspicious of BCCI/ IPL, that cricket is a sport, and the tournament (league) by the nature of its process is a sporting event, is indisputable. To dissect the generic composition of the sponsorship agreement by reference to a circumstance that payments are made not to the T-20 tournament of cricket matches but to the BCCI/ IPL (which is not a game), is an extravagant and logically misconceived analysis. Surely, it is not anybody’s case that the payments were made to BCCI/ IPL for the latters intrinsic brand image and not for or in relation to the tournament (T-20, which is the subject matter of the sponsorship agreement). The charging provision clearly excludes from chargeability to service tax, sponsorship in relation to sports events. The expression in relation to connotes activities associated with sports events. Sponsorship is not in relation to sports events, but is sponsorship of BCCI / IPL. No justification for the adjudicating authority’s assumption that since there is an underlying commercial element in the IPL events, the sponsorship, which is otherwise in relation to a sports event, is not so. In the absence of any limiting words or phrases in the provision (excluding sponsorship of sports events having a commercial purpose from the benefit of immunity to service tax), the adjudicating authority cannot engraft its own policy choices and preferences to the legislatively conferred immunity.
|