Petitioners, bus operators permitted to raise objections before the authorities.

V.S. SIRPURKAR, J.

This judgment shall dispose of the writ petitions mentioned above. In the said writ petitions, the petitioners have challenged the notices sent to them by the Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise, Service Tax Cell. Practically, in all the petitions such notices have been challenged.

2.By the said notice, the concerned authority has treated the noticees as the "tour operators" and requested them to register themselves with the office and follow the procedures prescribed in the Finance Act, 1994

3.The petitioners in these petitions can be classified in the following categories:

(I)Petitioners who are "Stage Carriage Operators" owning a "spare bus" covered under a "spare bus permit" as per Section 72(2) (xvii) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

(II)Petitioners who are "Contract Carriage Operators", owning the vehicles covered under Section 74 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

(III)Petitioners who are the owners of the "Maxi Cabs or Taxis" and having a permit under Section 74 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

4.Though we are disposing of all the writ petitions, where the petitioners are treated as "tour operators" under Section 65(52) of the Finance Act and/or "rent-a-cab scheme operators" under Section 65(38) of the Finance Act, we would be dealing with the petitions under each category separately. Common arguments were addressed by number of learned Counsel in each category.

5.Following is the legal background and the concerned provisions of the Finance Act, 1994 which would be necessary for appreciating the contentions raised in these writ petitions :

5.1Tax on "services" came to be introduced for the first time in the Budget presented in February, 1994. To begin with, this was to be a tax on services provided by the Stock Brokers, Non-Life Insurance Agents and Non-telephone bills. The provisions came into effect from 1-7-1994. The need for levying of this tax was felt as, according to the Finance Minister, "services" constituted about 40% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and they so far had gone tax-free in comparison to the "goods manufactured" which alone were taxed. It was further felt that in taxing all the services may imply discrimination against the goods in favour of the services and perhaps, therefore, the provisions of the service tax came to be introduced in the Central Excise Act, 1944. This tax-net was later on widened vide Finance (No. 2) Act, 1996 by including "Advertising Agency", " Courier Agencies"and" Pager Services". Further widening was effected by including 12 additional services in Finance Act, 1997. Ultimately, in Finance (No. 2) Act, 1998, 12 more "services" were defined under Section 65(48) of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1994 under the head "Taxable Services". Sub-sections (a) to (za) cover the "taxable services" under the provisions of the Service Tax.

5.2For the purposes of the present controversy, the following provisions of the Finance Act are relevant. They are :

Definitions "65.

(48)" taxable service

"means any service provided,

(a)... ... ...

(b)... ... ...

(n)to any person, by a tour operator in relation to a tour;

(o)to any person, by a rent-a-cab scheme operator in relation to the renting of a cab;

5.3Though these two services were included in the definition of "taxable service", they were exempted up to 31-3-2000. However, thereafter, they have been brought into tax-net as per Section 66(3) of the Finance Act. Section 66(3), therefore, is the "charging section" for these services.

5.4It will be worthwhile to see the other relevant provisions of the Finance Act. Section 65(50) of the Finance Act, defines the term "tour" as under :

"(50) tour" means a journey form one place to another irrespective of the distance between such places.

Section 65(51) defines the term "tourist vehicle", which reads as under :

"tourist vehicle" has the meaning assigned to it in clause (43) of section 2 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

Section 65 defines the term "tour operator" as under :

"tour operator" mea