2020 (5) TMI 290
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....l nadu Undertaking) on development charges. The department was of the view that the refund claimed ought to have been filed within six months from the date on which Section 104 of Finance Act, 2017 was introduced and received assent of the President. Refund claim was dismissed on the ground of limitation. The said order was upheld by the Commissioner (Appeals).Hence the appellant is now before the Tribunal. 2. On behalf of the appellant, Ld. counsel Shri S. Raghavendra B. Hanjer submitted that SIPCOT had informed that they are eligible for refund by issuing a letter dt. 18.01.2018 only. The said provision Section 104 does not state as to who has to file refund claim. The refund being collected by SIPCOT, the appellant was under bonafide be....
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....09.07.2019 wherein the Tribunal had discussed as under : "6. For better appreciation, section 104(1) of the Finance Act, 2017 is reproduced as under:- "104. Special provision for exemption in certain cases relating to long term lease of industrial plots - (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in section 66, as it stood prior to the 1st day of July, 2012, or in section 66B, no service tax, leviable on one time upfront amount [premium, salami, cost, price, development charge or by whatever name called] in respect of taxable service provided or agreed to be provided by a State Government Industrial Development Corporation or Undertaking or Industrial Units by way of grant of long term lease of thirty years or more of industrial plots, s....
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....ent documents to show that SIPCOT has deposited the service tax with the government. In case the service tax is not deposited with the government and retained by SIPCOT , it would be a situation of only returning the service tax by SIPCOT to the appellant. In such circumstances, there would be no question of filing a refund claim. Thus only after getting information from SIPCOT that SIPCOT has have deposited the service tax with the government and also getting details of such deposit in the nature of tax paid challan, can the appellant file the refund. Thus, it was essential for the appellant to get information from SIPCOT as to the eligibility of the refund. They also had to obtain the necessary documents in the nature of service tax paid ....
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.... be granted of the service tax already paid. It provides that the refund shall be made of all such service tax which has been collected but would be refundable under sub-section (1). Subsection (3) of Section 103 starts with a non-obstinate clause, which provides that notwithstanding anything contained in Section 103, an application for claim of refund of service tax shall be made within a period of six months from the date on which the Finance Bill 2016 receives the assent of the President. 14. From the perusal of this provision, one thing becomes clear that the respondents cannot link the requirement of refund application being made within the period of limitation envisaged in sub-section (3) of Section 103, with the condition of produc....
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.... be ignored for the purpose of computing the limitation for making refund application under sub-section (3) of Section 103 of the Finance Act, 1994. 15. This conclusion, however, would not enable any of the petitioners to claim the refund. This is so because as noted, even ignoring the entire period that the Ministry had consumed in granting the certificate, none of the refund applications of the petitioners' would come within the period of six months from 14-5-2015. It was in this context, strenuous efforts were made by the Counsel for the petitioners to persuade us to accept the refund applications beyond six months inter alia on the ground that limitation prescribed is not mandatory. 19. It can thus be seen that looking to the statut....