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2023 (4) TMI 546

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..... sidering the entire gamut of services as well as CBEC clarification bearing F. No. 137/76/2008-CX4 dated 05.06.2008 and F. No. 137/76/2008-CX4 dated 28.07.2008, the bench concluded that the services involved are not taxable services of the nature sought by the department and simply usage of some software by the party in India would not amount to activities coming under the preview of information technology services. The Sify Order extensively covers the rejection of the activities for service tax under the heads purposed by the department in the instant case also, and even for the same periods. Thus, activities of the appellants are not covered under various heads proposed by the department - appeal allowed. - Service Tax Appeal No. .....

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..... activity, along with interest and proposed to impose various penalties on the Appellant. 3.4 The Appellant filed reply to the SCN being reply dated 9.8.12 clarifying the exact nature of SSL certificates, and showing that the same are nothing but digital signature certificates only, which are held to be not subject to Service Tax by the Board, vide its clarification dt.5.6.08. 3.5 The Appellant filed further written submissions dt.10.9.12, wherein detailed reason were given why the demand is not sustainable. 3.6 The impugned order, however, came to be passed, confirming the demand of Service Tax along with interest and penalty. 3.7 Being dissatisfied and aggrieved with OIO dt. 28.1.13, the Appellant preferred an appeal before the .....

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..... d chart:- 4.2 The Advocate for appellant also emphasized that the same activity cannot be taxed under different heads for different period and relied upon the following decision to buttress his arguments:- Total Environment Building Systems P.Ltd.-2022 (63) GSTL 257 (SC) L T Ltd-2015 (39) STR 913 (SC) Crisil Ltd-2017 (48) STR 169 (Tri-Mumbai) Crisil Ltd-2018 (8) GSTL 16 (Bom.) Perfect Relations Ltd-2019 (22) GSTL 88 (Tri-Del) 5. As against this, the learned AR supported the order passed by the learned Commissioner (Appeals) emphasizing that SSL Certification is a much elaborate process in which digital signature certification is only a small part and therefore, the Boards Letter F.No. 137/76/2008-CX4 dated 0 .....

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..... at the activity of issuing DSC would not fall under Technical Inspection and Certification Service, Business Auxiliary Service or Business Support Service (BSS). From the detailed explanation of the activity put forward by the Ld. Counsel for appellant, we do not find that any of the steps/processes involved in issuing DSC would fall within the definition of Information Technology Services. Further, the software is owned by M/s. Verisign, USA and appellants have obtained only right to use the software. Therefore their activity does not involve any development of software. In fact appellants make use of the software already developed by M/s. Verisign and generate digital certificates. This is nothing but use of software just like use of wind .....

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