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2014 (2) TMI 144 - AT - Service TaxDenial of refund of service tax - Unjust enrichment - Online information and data access service - Held that - appellant has not provided any service at all. When service is not provided, question of service tax does not arise. The appellant has filed a refund claim of the service tax paid. Therefore, question of unjust enrichment does not arise - impugned order is set aside as bar of unjust enrichment is not applicable - Decided in favour of assessee.
Issues:
- Denial of refund of service tax on account of unjust enrichment Analysis: The appellant, engaged in online information and data access services, appealed against the denial of a refund of service tax due to unjust enrichment. The appellant had entered into a deal with a company but did not provide the services as the deal was not finalized. Despite issuing invoices and paying service tax, they later issued a credit note for the services not rendered. The Revenue rejected the refund claim citing unjust enrichment. The appellant argued that since no service was provided, unjust enrichment did not apply, and the impugned order should be set aside. The appellant contended that as they did not provide any service, the question of unjust enrichment did not arise. The appellant's position was that since they issued credit notes for the services not rendered, they were entitled to a refund of the service tax paid. The Revenue, however, supported the impugned order and reiterated their stance on unjust enrichment. After hearing both parties and considering the submissions, the Tribunal found that the crucial fact was that the appellant had not provided any service at all. As a result, the Tribunal concluded that since no service was provided, the question of service tax did not arise, and therefore, unjust enrichment was not applicable. Consequently, the impugned order was set aside, and the appeal was allowed with consequential relief. The Adjudicating authority was directed to comply with the order within 30 days of receipt.
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