Smt. Jyoti Balasundaram, Vice-President. - The issue in the above three appeals being common, they are taken up for hearing together and disposed of by this common order.

2. The brief facts of the case are that the appellant-company is an Export Oriented Unit (EOU) registered with the Software Technology Park India, Chennai (STPI) and is engaged in providing ‘Engineering Design Services’ involving engineering design, modelling, detailing, analysing etc., for customers located outside India. The appellant-company applied for ST registration which was granted under the category of ‘consulting engineer’ in Sept., 05 and returns were being filed regularly classifying the service as "Consulting Engineering Service". The appellants exported services as they had satisfied the conditions specified in Rule 3 of the Export of Services Rules, 2005. The appellants are also recipient of various services on which they had reimbursed the service tax charged by the provider of the services and such services are inputs to them for providing output service. Rule 5 of the Export of Services Rules, 2005 provides for rebate of duty paid on excisable inputs and cess paid on input services used in providing taxable exported services. Accordingly, the appellants filed rebate claim of Rs. 4,84,426 and Rs. 11,40,237 for the period Aug., 05 to Nov., 05 and Dec., 05 to Jan. 06 respectively, under Notification No. 12/2005-ST, dated 19-4-2005 issued in terms of the above rule show-cause notice dated 8-8-2006 was issued proposing rejection of the refund claim on the ground that the services exported were not taxable as the appellants were registered with STPI and the service exported was "Software Engineering Service" which was exempt from payment of tax; vide the Order-in-Original dated 23-3-2007, the claim was rejected; vide Order-in-Appeal dated 23-7-2007, the lower appellate authority rejected the assessees’ appeal holding that the service was mere conversion of 2D drawing of the client into 3D drawing with the help of software called ‘Pro-E’ and is not a service specified under section 65(105) of the Finance Act, 1994. This has given rise to Appeal No. ST/249/2007. Show-cause notice dated 27-2-2008, proposing rejection of claim for rebate of Rs. 50,16,161 covering the months of July, 07 and Sept., 07 was adjudicated vide order dated 20-6-2009 and upheld by the Commissioner (Appeals) order dated 18-5-2009, which is the subject-matter of Appeal No. ST/446/2009 show-cause notice dated 2-8-2007 proposing rejection of the claim for rebate of Rs. 8,34,614 covering the months of Feb., 06 and Mar., 06 was adjudicated vide order dated 20-6-2008 and upheld by the Commissioner (Appeals) vide order dated 23-6-2009, which is the subject-matter of Appeal No. ST/465/2009.

3. We have heard both sides. The services provided by the assessees are set out in details hereunder:-

Services Rendered by CAT EDC-INDIA

The Engineering Design Centre is functioning with Seven Teams:

1. Design Team - The team provides Design, Modelling and Detailing services to the Enterprise. For convenience and ease of operation, the team is again classified into 15 Sub-teams Comprising of Team Leaders, Modellers and Detailers, to meet the specific Engineering requirements, focused on the respective Business Units.

2. Analysis Team - This group is mainly focused on Product and Process Simulation services to meet the increasing demands of Caterpillar business units.

The Core competence of Simulation group is to perform Structural, Performance, and Fluid flow Analysis with the advanced tools and technologies to the rest of the enterprise. This dedicated team aims on quality deliverables with appropriate pace at low cost to all our Process partners.

3. Releasing Team - This Team supports all the EDS releasing and approval activities for TTTD and DPP - Lafayette & Griffin, from India. The focus on the 2 Teams will be to enhance their capabilities to be able to provide the EDS approval and releasing serv