1. Revenue has filed these appeals against waiver of penalties under Section 76 and Section 77 of Finance Act, 1994 passed in all the three appeals by a common order dated 15-10-04. Grievance of the Revenue is that breach of law should not be left unpunished.
2. Mr. Pranab Biswas, Id. Authorised Representative for Respondent No.1 appeared and none appeared for other two Respondents. However, they had prayed that their matter may kindly be decided on the basis of law.
Ld. Authorised Representative submitted that implementation of law was in infancy stage and statutory provisions were not known to them for which there was failure to comply to the law. The lower Appellate Authority, considering genuine hardship of the Respondent at the initial stage of implementation of law, waived the penalties justly and fairly.
3. Heard both sides. There is no doubt that the lower Appellate Authority has considered that the Respondents were innocent and implementation of service tax law was for the first time in their life.
However, they filed return and deposited Service Tax due much before issuance of show-cause notice. They had no intention to evade tax apparent from record. For such noticeable features, it would be proper to uphold the order of the lower Appellate Authority without directing the Respondents to face penal consequence.
4. In the result, the Revenue's appeals are dismissed upholding order of the lower Appellate Authority.