The failure to provide adequate opportunity for defense rendered the service tax demand and appeal dismissal invalid, emphasizing adherence to natural justice principles.

PER: M.M. PARTHIBAN

This appeal has been filed by M/s One Vibgyor Limited (formerly known as M/s Rosoft Limited), Mumbai (herein after, for short, referred to as ‘the appellants’) against the Order-in-Appeal No. SK/268/Appeals-II/ME/2023-24 dated 22.09.2023 (referred to, as ‘the impugned order’) passed by the Commissioner of CGST & Central Excise (Appeals-II), Mumbai.

2.1 Brief facts of the case, leading to this appeal, are summarized herein below:

2.2 The appellants herein, inter alia, are engaged in providing “Information technology design and development services” and for the purpose of payment of service tax and for compliance with service tax statute are registered with jurisdictional authorities holding Service Tax Registration No. AAACA3634PSD001. They are also holding PAN No. AAACA3634P for the purpose of income tax purpose. With the transition of Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, the appellants are also holding GSTIN No. 27AAACA3634P2ZG. Since the name of the appellants have changed to the present one i.e., M/s One Vibgyor Limited from M/s Rosoft Limited, even though the address of the registered office/principal place of business remained the same, the relevant GSTIN No. 27AAACA3634P1ZH had become inactive.

2.3 During the course of verification of ST-3 Return data filed by the appellants with the data regarding declared turnover in Income Tax Return (ITR)/Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) through 26AS for the year 2013-14 (October, 2013 to March, 2014), the department had come to a conclusion that the ST-3 return indicated ‘Nil’ taxable value of services, whereas the ITR indicate the total value of services as Rs.25,11,236/-. Thus, the department had concluded that the appellants had not declared the turnover of services to the above extent and that the applicable service tax of Rs.3,10,389/- at the rate of 12.36% had not been paid by the appellants.

2.4 The Department issued Show Cause Notice (SCN) dated 18.04.2019 to the appellants and in the absence of having not received any reply and as they did not respond to submit his defence to the allegations in the SCN, it was felt by the department that the appellants have accepted all the allegations mentioned in the SCN and proceeded to adjudicate a case. The original authority i.e., Assistant Commissioner, Division-III, Mumbai East CGST & Central Excise Commissionerate in adjudication of the case had confirmed the demand of service tax amounting to Rs.3,10,389/- under Section 73 (1) of the Finance Act, 1994 along with imposition of Penalty under Sections 77 , 78 ibid vide Order-in-Original dated 28.05.2021. When jurisdictional CGST & Central Excise officials i.e., Superintendent, Range-IV, Division-III, Mumbai East Commissionerate had written a letter dated 04.01.2023 to the appellants for recovery of the aforesaid adjudged demands as arrear of revenue, the appellants vide their reply letter dated 23.01.2023 had responded stating that they had not received any SCN or the Order-in-Original either by post or by e-mail. Therefore, they had requested the said jurisdictional Range Superintendent to provide the SCN and original order to them. On the above basis, the appellants, being aggrieved with the aforesaid order dated 28.05.2021 of the original authority, had filed an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) on 28.03.2023. In deciding the said appeal vide impugned order dated 22.09.2023, learned Commissioner (Appeals) has upheld the order of the original authority by dismissing the appeal filed by the appellants, on the ground that the appeal has been filed beyond the time limit in terms of Section 85 (3A) of the . Feeling aggrieved with the impugned order, the appellants have filed this appeal before the Tribunal.

3. Heard both sides and perused the case records. The additional submissions made in the form written paper book by both sides in this case were also perused carefully.

4.1 The Original authority had c