1. Krishna Kumar (Judicial Member)-The appellants have filed written submission. Shri C. Lamba, JDR is present on behalf of the Revenue.
2. It is seen from the written submission filed by the appellants that they had paid the service tax along with interest. The service tax and the interest amount paid by them is not challenged, therefore, the same is confirmed. The only challenge is with regard to the imposition of penalty of Rs. 84,950 under Section 76 and Rs. 1,000 under Section 77.
It is seen from the order passed by the adjudicating authority that the total service tax payable is Rs. 1,01,013. There is a total delay of 1630 days in making the payment of service tax. However, there are some overlapping days therefore, the adjudicating authority has imposed penalty only for 849 days at Rs. 100 per day being the minimum penalty imposable under the provisions of Section 76 of the Finance Act, 1994.
Since the adjudicating authority has imposed a minimum penalty under the said provisions and the said penalty has also been upheld by the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Commissioner (Appeals) has not found the reason given by the appellants being sufficient for the purpose Section 80, I do not find any reason to interfere with the order passed by the lower authorities. As regards the penalty of Rs. 1,000 imposed under Section 77 for late filing of the service tax returns, the same being minimum penalty is not questionable. Taking both the penalties together, they are still less than the amount of service tax involved in the case. I, therefore, do not find any reason to upset the order passed by the lower authorities. The appeal filed by the appellants is dismissed.