2008 (1) TMI 117

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..... ved from customers to compute AV
Dr. S.L. Peeran, Member (J) and Shri T.K. Jayaraman, Member (T) [Order Per Shri T. K. Jayaraman, Member (T)].- 1. This appeal has been filed against Order-in-Original No.13/2006/ST dated 27.10.2006 passed by the Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs, Cochin Commissionerate. 2. The appellant are holders of Service Tax Registration under the category of Customs House Agent (CHA) services. The appellants have also been licensed by the Cochin Port Trust to undertake stevedoring operations at Cochin Port. Revenue conducted investigation which revealed that the appellant had not been paying any Service Tax on the stevedoring charges collected by them. According to Revenue, the stevedoring charges would c .....

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..... manded to the tune of Rs.28,83,515/- along with Education Cess of Rs.20,354/-. Thus, the total demand of Rs.1,32,32,214/- has been issued. Interest under Section 75 has been demanded. Penalties under Section 76, 77 and 78 have also been imposed. The appellants are highly aggrieved over the impugned order. 3. S/Shri B. V. Kumar, and B. Venugopal, learned advocates appeared on behalf of the appellant and Shri K. Sambi Reddi, learned JDR on behalf of the Revenue. 4. We heard both sides. The learned advocate brought to our notice that the Original Authority has considered stevedoring services as Port Services and levied Service Tax for the charges collected by them as stevedoring charges. The stevedoring activity is loading and unloading of c .....

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..... f the fact. During the course of hearing before this bench, the learned advocate showed us various bills raised on their customers and in each of this bill, there is a clear indication of the transportation charges. Therefore, it cannot be said that the appellant had not kept separate accounts for transportation charges. Now, this transportation charges are clearly reimbursable from their customers and they have to be necessarily excluded from the amount received from their customers. In these circumstances, the demand of Service Tax by including the transportation charges collected by the appellant is not in order. Therefore, this is also liable to be set aside. 6. Summing up the demand on account of stevedoring services and by inclusion .....

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