By TIOL News Service

MUMBAI, JAN 15, 2018: THESE are appeals filed by Dena Bank against the orders passed by Commissioner(A), Service Tax, Mumbai.

The appellant is a nationalised bank having a centralised service tax registration under the category of "Banking and Other Financial Services".

They are availing CENVAT credit.

The appellant had written off an amount of Rs.2467.43 crores as non-performing assets during the period 2006-07 to 2014-15.

Revenue entertained a view that the appellant is required to reverse the CENVAT credit attributable to the input services relating to writing off of the amounts in their books of accounts.

The appellant had taken a categorical stand that writing off the amount in their books of account is only an entry and cannot be considered to be a service at all, that too an exempted service, so as to comply with the provisions of Rule 6(3) of the CCR, 2004. However, the original authority as well as the lower appellate authority did not find favour with the said stand of the assessee and confirmed the demand.

The CESTAT after considering the submissions observed -

"5. … I find that the appellant's plea that such writing off of loans cannot be considered to be a service, is not specifically dealt with by the lower authorities. They have not categorized the said service under any of the services on the statute book and has not answered the appellant's plea as to under which category the service falls. The demand was also assailed on the point of limitation, which needs to be re-examined by the lower authorities."

The impugned orders were set aside and the matter was remanded to the original adjudicating authority for fresh decision.

(See 2018-TIOL-203-CESTAT-MUM)