CESTAT provides relief to Adani Power

CESTAT provides relief to Adani Power

The two-member bench permitted the reimbursement of service tax

The Ahmedabad Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) has dismissed an appeal by the Service Tax department against Adani Power Limited. It has allowed the refund of service tax paid on the services utilized in the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) for authorized operations.

The department contended that the respondent-Company had wrongly classified the services under categories other than the actual services provided by the service providers. It said that the services mentioned did not exist in the approval list.

However, a two-member bench comprising Judicial Member Ramesh Nair and Technical Member P Anjani Kumar ruled in favor of the assessee. It held, "As regards the contention of the revenue department, the Income Tax Commissioner (Appeals) had erred by ignoring the procedural lapses viz-a-viz incorrect address, incomplete address, address not mentioned."

It stated, "In some cases, the service provider mentioned the address of Sambhav Building. As per the condition of the notification, the service should be utilized within the SEZ and the address of the SEZ is a mandatory requirement. Hence, such services cannot be considered as utilized in relation to an authorized operation. We find that the IT Commissioner (Appeals) after going through the impugned Order-in-Original passed a detailed order and, thereafter, set it aside."

The tribunal dismissed the appeal and ruled, "We do not find any infirmity in the impugned order passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) and, therefore, we uphold the same."