Customs, Excise and Gold Tribunal - Mumbai
Prism Ads. vs Commissioner Of C. Ex. And Cus. on 8 March, 2006
ORDER
Jyoti Balasundaram, Vice-President
1. After hearing both sides on the application for waiver of pre-deposit of Rs. 70,865/- (Rs. Seventy Thousand Eight Hundred Sixty Five only) confirmed as Service tax and penalty of an equal amount imposed under Sections 78 and 76, penalty of Rs. 2,000/- (Rs. Two Thousand only) under Section 77 of Chapter V of Finance Act, 1994, we found it was possible to hear and decide the appeal itself at this stage. The issue in dispute namely as to whether the appellants herein are covered under the category of advertising agency and have rendered services of advertising agencies, stands settled by a series decision of the Tribunal. We, therefore, take up the appeal for final hearing with the consent of both sides after waiving pre-deposit.
2. We find that there is no dispute that the appellants hired their hoardings to advertising agency who in turn displayed or exhibited their advertisement on such hoardings. The question as to whether this would amount to rendering services as advertising agency, had come up for consideration before the Tribunal in the case of Commissioner of Central Excise, Ludhiana v. Azad Publications in which it was held that sub-letting of site to an advertising agency for the purpose of permitting them (advertising agency) to display their advertisement and raising bills for realization of rental charges did not amount to providing services of the nature defined under Section 65(3) of Chapter V of the Finance Act, 1994 which defines an advertising agency to mean "any commercial concern engaged in providing any services connected with making, preparation, display or exhibition of advertisement and includes an advertising consultant" and taxable services which means "any services provided to client by advertising agency in relation to advertisement in any manner." The above decision of the Tribunal has been followed in the case of Commissioner of Central Excise, Chennai v. Team UPD Ltd. 2005 (179) E.L.T. 469 (Tri.-Chennai).
3. Following the ratio of the above orders, we set aside the demand of service tax and the penalty and allow the appeal.
(Dictated in Court)