By TIOL News Service

MUMBAI, FEB 03, 2017: THE Commissioner(A) has, with reference to section 106(2) of Chapter VI of Finance Act, 2013 (VCES, 2013), held that an inquiry, initiated before 1 st March 2013, was pending and, hence, the issue of a rejection order by the original authority was in conformity with the scheme.

The facts are that the Appellant is a provider of ‘Construction of residential complex service' and made a declaration of Rs.6,92,160/- as unpaid dues for October 2011 to December 2012, on 25 th November 2013. The dues were paid by 24 th December 2013.

The impugned order concurred with the finding of the original authority that an inquiry was already underway and, relying upon correspondences of July 2010, August 2011 and June 2012, it was held that the appellant is ineligible to participate in the declaration scheme.

Before the CESTAT, the appellant submitted that the impugned order has merely reiterated the order appealed against and not considered the submissions made. Inasmuch as the order has traveled beyond the notice served on them.

The Bench observed -

+ Show cause notice was issued on 30 th June 2014. According to appellant, Central Board of Excise & Customs issued circular no. 174/9/2013-ST which explicitly requires the said provisions be invoked only if issue or period of inquiry is identifiable from summons or any other document. Yet another stipulation is that the notice for rejection should be issued within 30 days of filing of declaration.

+ It is seen that the show cause notice has been issued well after the deadline stipulated in the circular . The notice does not make any reference to a summons but only to a statement. It would appear that, in order to avoid rejection on frivolous grounds, the requirement of citing a summons or any document specifying the authority and specific information has been prescribed.

+ The letters cited in the notice do not appear to specify any particular record from which it can be inferred that an investigation or inquiry, that was not a roving one, had been initiated.

The impugned order was set aside and the appeal was allowed.

(See 2017-TIOL-299-CESTAT-MUM)