In Super Sales Agencies Ltd v. CCE, the division bench of the CESTAT, Chennai bench held that Service Tax is leviable on services such as consultancy, technical Assistance provided by a Consulting Engineer for erection and installation works.
Assessee-Company was aggrieved by the order of the Revenue whereby service tax was imposed on the consideration received by them for supervising erection and installation works. Appellant questioned the impugned order contending that they only erected and erection and commissioning came into the scope of taxation w.e.f. July 2003 but not for the impugned period. The appellant further relied on CBEC’s Circular No.137/38/2003-CX.4 dt. 13-05-2004 and submitted that their activity shall not be “Consulting Engineering service” which is presumed by Revenue to bring the appellant to the fold of said service for taxation.
On behalf of the Revenue, it was vehemently contended that the appellant has provided Consulting Engineering Service and was rightly taxed by the adjudicating authority under the head “Consulting Engineering Service”.
Dismissing the appeal, the bench said that “when any service is provided to a client by Consulting Engineer in relation to advice, consultancy or technical assistance in any manner in one or more disciplines of engineering, the service provider shall be called as “Consulting Engineer” in accordance with section 65 (90) (g) read with section 65 (25) of the Finance Act, 1994. There is no material on record to show that there was any erection work carried out by appellant. Whatever the documents placed before us, that depicts that appellant was supervisor to provide technical assistance for the purpose of erection and installation. Therefore Revenue is correct in its approach to bring the service provided by the appellant as Consulting Engineer, providing consultancy for the said service. Accordingly, in so far as tax demand is concerned, appeal of the appellant is dismissed.”
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