LAW NEWS FROM LEGAL SECTION

 

 CHENNAI II COMMISSIONERATE

 

                        A division bench  of the Madras High Court comprising of Justice V.S.Sirpurkar & Justice A.Kulasekaran on 30.4.2001 dismissed a batch of Writ Petitions filed by various service providers challenging the constitutional validity etc of the levy of Service Tax on the services provided by them.

 

            The stays initially granted in these Writ Petitions were vacated by the bench on 20.12.2000.  Thereafter, the bench commenced hearing arguments for final disposal of the Writ Petitions.  The arguments were resumed after a break in March 2001 and continued on a day-to-day basis till completion on 29.4.2001.  On 30.4.2001 the Court passed orders dismissing the Writ Petitions filed by (a) Tour Operators and Rent-a-cab Pperators (b) Hoarding/Advertisement Agencies (c) Mandap Keepers (d) Valuers (e) Air Travel Agencies as devoid of merit.

 

            When court reopened after vacation, the same court pronounced orders on 29.6.2001 in respect of Chartered Accountants, Auditors and Architects too, dismissing these Writ Petitions also.

 

            42 Writ Petitions pertaining to Chennai II Commissionerate were thus disposed of in favour of the Department.  The Department was represented by Shri M.Chandrasekaran, Senior Counsel and former Additional Solicitor General who was appointed by the Government for these cases and by Shri K.Veeraraghavan, Additional Central Government Standing Counsel.

 

The High Court has by these orders upheld the constitutional validity of the levy of Service Tax by the Government.

 

            With the disposal of the Writ Petitions, a major hurdle in the collection of Service Tax in respect of these services has been removed.

 

Case 2:

In a case relating to recovery of erroneous refund, the Madras High Court has, in its order dated 17.1.2001 in WP No.1882/94 directed the CEGAT, Chennai to dispose of a reference application pending before it in the light of the ratio laid down in an earlier judgement of the same Court in the case of Sivananda Pipe Fittings Vs.Superintendent of Central Excise, Range - I, Hosur and others reported in 1994 45 ECC 77 (Madras). In the case of  Sivananda Pipe Fittings Vs.Superintendent of Central Excise,  the Madras High Court had held that in the case  of recovery of erroneous refund by the Department, when the procedure under Section 35E had been followed and application had been filed before Commissioner (Appeals) under Section 35E (4) and notices had also been served on the party concerned, there was no need to issue notice under Section 11A all over again.