Service Tax Exemption for Chicken Sausages: CESTAT rejects Claim as Evidence necessary under conditional notification [Read Order]
The tribunal observed that the alternate claim for benefit of General Exemption was not absolute but rather had conditions prescribed such as supporting documents.
The Customs, Excise and Service Tax AppellateTribunal (CESTAT), Chennai Bench, rejected a claim for service tax exemption for chicken sausages because evidence was necessary under the conditional notification.
The facts are that the appellant, Western Farm Fresh (P) Ltd., has imported goods declared as ‘D&W Chicken Spicy Sausages’ and assessed the same to Basic Customs Duty (BCD) at 8% in terms of Notification No. 125 apart from CVD at 6% on Retail Sale Price (RSP) value and Special CVD at nil rate. The Revenue department was of the view that the goods were not eligible for the exemption claimed.
The Original Authority rejected the RSP as declared, and confirmed the differential duty demand. First Appellate Authority dismissed their appeal and the issue before CESTAT was whether the claim of the appellant for the benefit of Notification No. 125 dated 30.12.2011 is entertainable.
The appellant contended that they had claimed the benefit under Notification No. 125 inadvertently but were actually eligible for benefit of Notification No.. 26/2000-Cus dated 01.03.2000. The tribunal observed that the alternate claim for benefit of General Exemption (Notification No. 26) was not absolute but rather had conditions prescribed such as supporting documents.
CESTAT further observed that Rule 23 of CESTAT (Procedure) Rules, 1982 prescribes the procedure for filing additional documents but the same was not followed by the appellant. The bench of Vasa Seshagiri Rao (Technical Member) and P. Dinesha (Judicial Member) finally found no merit in the appellant’s contention.
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