TMI Blog2015 (11) TMI 522X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Therefore, it is not the appellant who has committed an offence of non payment of service tax, it is the consultant, who has defrauded them therefore there is reasonable cause for waiver of penalty under Section 78. - there is no reason to interfere in the findings of the Ld. Commissioner(Appeals) who has reduced penalty by proper application of mind. I, therefore upheld the impugned order and dismiss the appeal of the Revenue. - Decided against Revenue. - APPEAL NO. ST/89985/14 & ST/CO/91006/15 - Final Order Nos. A/2276-2277/2015-WZB/SMB - Dated:- 12-6-2015 - Mr. Ramesh Nair, Member (Judicial) For the Petitioner : Shri. A.B. Kulgod, Asst. Commissioner(A.R.) For the Respondent : Shri. Sadashiv Hawaldar, Advocate ORDER ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... iated the criminal proceedings and filed FIR with the police. This undisputed facts clearly shows that appellant did not have any malafide intension or intention to evade service tax. Non payment of service tax has occurred only due to the fraud committed by the consultant. Therefore penalty should not have been imposed under Section 78 as reasonable cause has been shown. By invoking Section 80 of the Finance Act, penalty under Section 78 was correctly dropped by the Commissioner(Appeals) as regard the reduction of penalty under Section 77, he submits that entire records was with the consultant and appellant was under bonafide belief that since, entire job of depositing service tax and filing of the returns was assigned to the consultant, t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... service tax and submission of return etc and they were paying cash to the consultant for the payment of service tax. I find that no contrary evidence has been brought in the investigations in this regard to prove that the amount was not being paid by the appellants to the consultant for the payment of service tax to the department or the appellants were colluding with the consultant. The show cause notice states that the department has filed F.I.R. with the police authorities for the fraudulent act on the part of the consultant. Therefore, the appellants also not been named in the F.I.R. along with the consultant. The Ld. Adjudicating authority has not accepted the plea of the Appellants regarding payment of amount of service tax to consul ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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