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2019 (11) TMI 1584 - AT - Service TaxWorks Contract - constitutional prerogative accorded to the supreme legislature - scope of encroachment by tax administration - HELD THAT:- The generic expression ‘transport terminal’ must be read in the context of its usage for servicing means of public transport. While ‘airports’ may have been enumerated separately in the exclusions within the taxable entry, it too is a transport terminal as the distinguishing characteristic of such facilities is connectivity, interface and buffer. It is for the last of these, viz., buffer for stepping up or stepping down to capacity of the next level of interface, that space is constructed to offer a bouquet of services and goods to passengers during the waiting time. Therefore, the utilisation of built-up space by commercial entities does not detract from the essential purpose of such terminals and, traditionally, every bus terminal has outlets serving the passengers. In the absence of legislative intent or legislative delegation, an artificial delineation of space, at the discretion of tax authorities, is not acceptable. It is also specious to argue that absence or limits of security restrictions, unlike that elaborately designed, for obvious reasons at airports, should disentitle bus terminal from application as exclusion. Thus, ‘terminals’, such as the one impugned before us, are, in the absence of express legislative intent to limit application on the basis of scale of use or scale of access, within the ambit of exclusion from tax. Appeal allowed.
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