TMI Blog2020 (4) TMI 105X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... icating authority is required to satisfy itself about the scope, and extent, of eligibility for notification no. 12/2003-ST dated 20 June 2003 and, in the event of recourse to the composite scheme by the appellant, for the duty to be computed accordingly. Adjuring the original authority to limit the adjudication, now ordered, to the normal period from the relevant date in relation to the first show cause notice and for the first three months of 2012-13 in the second notice and to comply strictly with the framework for taxation of works contract service expounded by the Hon ble Supreme Court in re Larsen Toubro Ltd, the demand for these two periods set aside with the direction that the same be subject to fresh adjudication in which the appellants herein shall be entitled to make all their submissions - appeal disposed off. - SERVICE TAX EARLY HEARING APPLICATION NO: 85123 of 2019 IN SERVICE TAX APPEAL NO: 85647 of 2015 WITH SERVICE TAX APPEAL NO: 86046 of 2015 AND SERVICE TAX APPEAL NO: 86182 of 2015 - A/85585-85587/2020 - Dated:- 13-3-2020 - HON BLE MR C J MATHEW, MEMBER (TECHNICAL) AND HON BLE DR SUVENDU KUMAR PATI, MEMBER (JUDICIAL) APPEARANCE: Shri V Sridhar ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... June 2014 was impugned before the Tribunal in appeal no. ST/88427/14. On the plea of the appellant that their contention, in response to the show cause notice, of the error in inclusion of value of materials in the assessable value, for reason of having been subject to VAT levy, had not been taken cognizance of by the adjudicating authority, the first of the disputes was remanded back to the original authority for ascertainment of that claim before disposal in fresh proceedings. Consistent with that stand, the challenge to the demand-cum-recovery notice for the following year was also similarly remanded vide order of 26th August 2014. Both these were adjudicated together in the first of the orders now impugned before us. The appeal against the original confirmation of demand for 2012-13 was dismissed by the Tribunal as infructuous in view of the demand itself having been remanded. The appeal against the demand for the year thereafter is also taken for disposal for the first time along with the de novo adjudication order. 4. Among the various business activities of the appellant, the dispute is limited to the contracts entered into with customers for manufacture of elevators t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... arate taxing entries in the statute, before and after, has been lost sight of and that the scope thereof of these which was, yet, under consideration of the Hon ble Supreme Court in re Larsen Toubro Ltd needed serious interpretation was not even a passing thought. Furthermore, that the composition scheme , an option available to an assessee, could not have been thrust upon any assessee did not appear to cross the mind of the tax authorities. Even if the demarcation of material and service elements of composite contract were found to be an artificial contrivance, that was no justification for a tax authority to exceed the legislative sanction of the levy withheld from the Union by Article 366 (29A) as applied to List II of the Seventh Schedule in the Constitution of India. 7. Furthermore, the direction of the Tribunal, while remanding the matter to original authority, to examine the discharge of VAT liability was not complied with. This would have, in the light of later decisions, accorded finality to the dispute. It is also seen that the demands for 2012-13 and 2013-14 were confirmed without issue of show cause notice even though the issue of demand-cum-recovery notice, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ions, does not restrict eligibility thereof to some specified taxable services and, therefore, more particularly owing to the spirit of the composition scheme, entitling providers of works contract services . 10. The frailty, if any, in the translation of The moving finger writes; and, having writ , moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half line, nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it. in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald notwithstanding, there could be no better articulation of the finality of a decision by the highest court in the land. The taxability of works contract service , the scope and extent thereof, and the context of existing taxable services subsumed therein now stand settled. As held by the Hon ble Supreme Court in re Larsen Toubro Ltd, various taxable services , including section 65(105)(zzd) of Finance Act, 1994, were intended only for services simpliciter and not for works contracts . The impugned order, having proceeded on the assumption that the activity of the appellant was execution of works contract , the claim of service simpliciter was not considered therein. One option available to us is ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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