Customs, Excise and Gold Tribunal Delhi G.M. Telecom, Bsnl vs Cce on 10 October, 2005 Equivalent citations: 2006(113)ECC83, 2006ECR83(TRI.DELHI), 2006[1]S.T.R.315 ORDER S.S. Kang, VicePresident Page 84 1. The appeal is being taken up with the stay petition as the appeal is also listed for regular hearing. appellant filed this appeal against the order in appeal passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) whereby the interest was demanded in respect of the service tax, which was paid late. 2. The contention of the appellant is that prior to September 2000, the appellants were the Department of Government of India. They are collecting telecom charges along with the service tax from their customers and Page 85 amounts were deposited in the account, i.e. under the head telecom receipt on daytoday basis. Prior to October 1998, the service tax is to be paid through book adjustment from the account of telecom receipt and, thereafter, the appellant deposited the service tax after withdrawing the amount from telecom receipt. The contention is in the present case that the amount in respect of service tax duly collected from their customers were regularly deposited along with telephone charges in the telecom receipts. As the amount of service tax was deposited in the account of Central Government Department and on pointing out by the Revenue by way of issuing a show cause notice, the amount of service tax was duly deposited in appropriate account relates to service tax. The contention is that as the amount is already deposited in the account of Central Government, i.e. Telecom receipt, therefore, the appellants are not liable to pay any interest in respect of the service tax. The appellants relied upon the following decision of the tribunal. 1. General Manager (Telecom) v. CCE, Chandigarh . The appellants also submitted that being a government department they got clearance from the committee on disputes for pursuing the appeal with the tribunal and while granting the permission the committee was on of the opinion that no interest is payable in view of the opinion obtained from the department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law. The contention is that the demand in respect of interest on the amount in question is not sustainable. 3. The contention of the Revenue is that appellants cannot take advantage being a government department and the liability to pay interest is there as appellant paid the service tax after the due dates. The Revenue relied upon the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Commissioner of Trade Tax, Lucknow v. Kanhai Jrai Thekedar . The Revenue also submitted that all the assesses are to be treated on the same footing and the appellant being Government of India Department, cannot be treated as the different assessee. As the appellant had paid service tax after the due date and this fact is not denied by the appellant, therefore, as per the provisions of Section 75 of the Finance Act, appellants are liable to pay interest upto the date of deposit of service tax. The Revenue also relied upon the decision of the Tribunal in the case of G.M. Telecom BSNL v. Commissioner of Central Excise, Chandigarh reported in 2003 (160) ELT 318 (TriDel.) to submit that the book adjustment in respect of service tax is only upto October, 1998. 4. In this case the issue is only in respect of the interest on the late payment of service tax. The appellant, up to September 2000, was the department of Central Government. The appellants collected the telecom charges along with the service tax from their customers. This amount was deposited in the Central Government account i.e. Telecom receipt on the daytoday basis. No doubt, the amount of service tax collected by the appellant is to be deposited in the relevant head of service tax and this was done. As Page 86 Revenue pointed out this omission the demand of interest was raised on the ground that service tax was deposited in the relevant Head after the due dates. The appellant approached the committee of Disputes for obtaining the necessary permission to pursue the appeal in the tribunal and the committee after obtaining the opinion of Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law granted the permission by noticing the following observations: The committee noted that the matters in dispute relate mostly to the period prior to the coming into being of BSNL, a PSU, which has taken over the operations of telecom services in the country (except Mumbai and Delhi). Accordingly, the dispute relates to the period when the telephone services in the country (except Mumbai and Delhi) were being provided departmentally by the Department of Telecommunication, Ministry of Communications. The service tax was collected along with the bills for telephone rental, call charges etc. and the telephone subscribers had the facility to deposit their telephone bills (including service tax) in the post offices or other collection centres. The service t