Refund
CESTAT, CHENNAI BENCH
Pasla Air Travels & Cargo (P) Ltd.
v.
Commissioner of Customs & Central Excise
P. KARTHIKEYAN, TECHNICAL MEMBER
S/PD/5/07 IN S/10/07/MAS
FINAL ORDER NO. 968 OF 2007
STAY ORDER NO. 819 OF 2007
August 3, 2007
Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, 1944 - Claim for
refund of duty - Period 2003 to 2004 - Assessee ‘air travel agent’ filed a
refund claim of service tax on cancelled air tickets - Assessee’s claim was
rejected by adjudicating authority on ground that, assessee had not established
that tax collected had been returned to persons who had booked air tickets,
and, accordingly, refund amount was credited to ‘consumer welfare fund’ - Commissioner (Appeals) upheld order of
adjudicating authority - Whether since assessee was in possession of
documentary evidence to substantiate its claim that it had returned airfare and
service tax to clients and passengers had acknowledged receiving refund of fare
and service tax paid when they had cancelled their tickets, in view of this,
matter was to be remanded to original authority to examine case afresh and to
allow refund to extent assessee was able to establish that it had refunded
service tax originally collected from passengers - Held, yes [Para 3]
FACTS
The assessee
had paid the service tax as Air Travel Agent during the period 2003-2004 for
air tickets issued. These tickets were
subsequently cancelled. The assessee
filed refund claim of service tax paid on said cancelled tickets. The
adjudicating authority held that the assessee had not established that the tax
collected had been refunded to the persons who had booked the air tickets and
he credited the refund amount to ‘consumer welfare fund’. The Commissioner (Appeals) had also upheld
the order of eh adjudicating authority.
On appeal:-
HELD
There was no
dispute as regards the payment of service tax for issue of air tickets which
were cancelled later. The assessee were
entitled to receive refund of the said amount.
The assessee were in possession of documentary evidence to substantiate
its claim it had returned the airfare and service tax to its clients. The passengers had acknowledged receiving
refund of the fare and service tax paid when it had cancelled their tickets. In the circumstances, the case was to be
remanded to the original authority to examine the case afresh and to allow
refund to the appellants to the extent it was able to establish that it had
refunded the service tax originally collected from the passengers.. [