2012 (10) TMI 490

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..... -  Appellant is engaged in providing taxable service covered under the category of transport of goods by road. Appellant had not paid the service tax for the period from 1-4-2005 onwards and on an investigation taken up by the Revenue in March 2006, the appellant paid the full amount of service tax with interest before issue of show cause notice. There is no dispute as regards the liability .....

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..... t that this is a fit case for waiver of penalty under Section 80 of  Finance Act, 1994 or invocation of Section 73(3) of Finance Act, 1994. In this case the service tax was paid within one year and therefore the provisions of Section 73(3) of Finance Act, 1994 also would be in favour of the appellant and would be applicable to the facts of the case. 3. The learned DR submits that this w .....

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..... or a procedural lapse by persons liable to pay service tax on the goods transport by road, committed before 31-12-2005, the consequences should be limited to recovery of tax with interest payable thereon. No penalty should be imposed on such defaulters unless the default is on account of deliberate fraud or a collusion, suppression of facts or wilful mis-statement or contraventions of the provisi .....

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..... r they have received all the bills or not. Further, the fact that Board chose to issue a circular also would show that the government anticipated problems and difficulties on the part of service tax providers and receivers subsequent to introduction of duty liability and therefore the circular was issued. It has to be noted that the circular was issued even prior to the imposition of tax. Under th .....

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..... Act, 1994 which provides that if service tax with interest is paid before issue of show cause notice, no further proceedings should be initiated. In this view of the matter this was a case where no show cause notice should have been issued at all in terms of the law. I am not going into the applicability or otherwise of various decisions of the Tribunal cited by the learned Chartered Accountant in .....

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