The main legal point established in the judgment is the need for a liberal interpretation of remedial statutory schemes like the Sabka Vishwas Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme, 2019 to achieve their purpose. The court emphasized the distinction between 'litigation' and 'arrears' categories and held that the petitioner's case fell under the 'arrears' category, requiring a reconsideration by the respondent.

JUDGMENT :

SUNIL B. SHUKRE, J.

1. Heard. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent.

2. The petitioner is a private limited company. It is engaged in providing various taxable services such as broadcasting service, cable operators service and so on and so forth. It was registered under the erstwhile service tax regime. Due to severe financial difficulties, the petitioner could not properly discharge its service tax liability. Some investigation was conducted by the respondent department following which a show-cause notice was issued to the petitioner alleging that the petitioner failed to discharge its service tax liability properly and improperly availed of Cenvat credit, to which the petitioner was not eligible under the Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004 and accordingly, a demand was placed upon the petitioner for payment of service tax dues and also the dues on account of improperly availed of Cenvat credit together with a demand for payment of penalty and interest as mentioned in the show-cause notice. The show-cause notice was issued to the petitioner on 24.4.2019. After hearing the petitioner, the show-cause notice was adjudicated upon by the Commissioner of Central Tax and Central Excise, Nagpur-I Commissionerate vide order dated 29.12.2019 which the petitioner claims to have been received by him on 30.12.2019.

3. In the adjudication order, the original demand of service tax dues of Rs. 43,62,79,032/- was confirmed and demand arising from disallowing of Cenvat credit was toned down considerably. As per the adjudication order, after adjusting the amount already paid against the service tax liability of the petitioner, an amount of Rs. 65,22,938/- was found to be in arrears and recoverable from the petitioner.

4. While the adjudication of the show-cause notice was pending, Sabka Vishwas Legacy Dispute Resolution Scheme, 2019 (hereinafter called as “Scheme, 2019” for short) came to be introduced and the relevant statutory provisions were made in Chapter V of the Finance Act, 2019 and Sabka Vishwas Legacy Dispute Resolution Rules, 2019 (“Rules 2019” for short). The Scheme was introduced to enable the assessees settle their pending disputes in relation to service tax dues and levies under the old service tax regime, which had been later on subsumed into general sales tax regime, as one time measure so that the assessees can have peace before they make a new beginning under the new GST regime. The Scheme, 2019 was opened on 1.9.2019 and was to remain in force till 31.12.2019 initially but later on it was extended up to 15.1.2020. The Scheme provided for reliefs in terms of different percentages of tax dues by putting the tax dues into categories such as “litigation” and “arrears” categories.

5. Upon receiving the order adjudicating the show-cause notice, and in view of the fact that the Scheme, 2019 was in operation, the petitioner filed his declaration in form SVLDRS-1 on 14.1.2020 under “arrears” category thinking that as the adjudication was made during the validity period of the Scheme, 2019, any declaration made by the petitioner would be considered for appropriate decision under “arrears” category and not under “litigation” category. But, that was not to be and it was proposed by the department that the petitioner’s declaration would be considered under “litigation” category and not under “arrears” category and accordingly, a show-cause notice in the form SVLDRS-2 was issued to the petitioner indicating that the disputed liability was of Rs. 88,97,26,968/- and the amount payable under the Scheme would be 50% of the same. The show-cause notice also informed the petitioner that as the petitioner had already paid an amount of Rs. 2,38,00,334/- the amount ultimately payable by the petitioner would be Rs. 42,10,63,150/-.

6. After granting personal hearing to the petitioner, adjudication was made by the respondent an