P.G. Chacko, Judicial Member - The stay application is by the appellant seeking waiver of predeposit and stay of recovery in respect of the adjudged dues which include an amount of Rs. 58,01,866/- demanded as service tax and education cesses under the Head "Commercial Training or Coaching Service" for the period from March 2004 to December 2008. On a perusal of the records and hearing both sides, we are of the view that the appeal itself requires to be finally disposed of at this stage. Accordingly, after dispensing with predeposit, we take up the appeal.

2. This appeal filed by the assessee is directed against the Commissioner's order holding the assessee liable to pay service tax under the Head "Commercial Training or Coaching Service" in respect of their activities in question, for the period from March 2004 to December 2008, and demanding the aforesaid amount as service tax and education cesses under Section 73(1) of the Finance Act, 1994, interest thereon under Section 75 of the Act and imposing penalties under Sections 76 to 78 of the Act. The breakup of the taxable value for the impugned demand of service tax and education cess is given below:

As it appears from the above particulars, the appellant had collected "material and laboratory costs" from their own employees during the latter's training period, totalling to Rs. 1,95,46,383/-. The appellant also collected an amount of Rs. 2,29,39,983/- from people who wanted to be medical transcriptionists and, for this purpose, purchased from the appellant Homebased Medical Transcriptionist Handbooks (HMT handbooks, for short) for the said total amount. Similarly, the appellant collected an amount of Rs. 1,20,75,716/- as total price of Healthcare Receivable Cycle Management Handbooks (HRCM handbooks, for short) from those who wanted to work in that area of paramedical field. The department issued a show-cause notice to the appellant seeking to levy service tax and education cesses totalling to Rs. 20.78 lakhs (approximately) on the material and laboratory costs amounting to over Rs. 1.95 crores. The show-cause notice also propose to recover service tax and education cesses totalling to Rs. 37.23 lakhs on the amount collected by the appellant as price of HMT Handbooks and HRCM handbooks. Both demands were raised under the Head "Commercial training or Coaching service". The demands were contested on numerous grounds. The appellant in the first instance contended that they were not rendering commercial training or coaching service to their own trainee-employees or to the purchasers of the handbooks. Alternatively, they claimed the benefit of Notification No. 24/2004-ST dated 10/9/2004 on the premise that their inactivity would be, at best, classifiable as vocational training. In their reply to the show-cause notice, the appellants also referred to an earlier show-cause notice issued to them for recovery of service tax on material and laboratory costs, subsequently withdrawn by the department for the purpose of issuing the subject show-cause notice invoking extended period of limitation. The appellant contested the invocation of the extended period of limitation in these circumstances. The learned consultant for the appellant today submits that none of the contentions raised by them in the reply to the show-cause notice was considered by the adjudicating authority. In this context, the learned consultant has invited our attention to the relevant paragraphs of the impugned order, appearing under the caption "discussion, findings and order". He particularly refers to paragraphs 5 & 6 and submits that no reasons have been recorded by the adjudicating authority for arriving at the findings recorded in these paragraphs. Therefore, according to the