Customs, Excise and Gold Tribunal - Tamil Nadu
Sap India System, Applications And ... vs Commissioner Of Central Excise on 6 October, 2005
ORDER P.G. Chacko, Member (J)
1. The present application seeks early disposal of the appeal. After allowing the application, we proceed to deal with the appeal.
2. The present appeal is against demand of service tax on the service of Consulting Engineer, from the appellants for the period 7-7-1997 to 27-2-1999.
3. After examining the records and hearing both sides, we find that the short question arising for consideration is whether the service rendered by Software Engineer could be considered to be service rendered by a Consulting Engineer. In the impugned order, ld. Commissioner (Appeals) has lucidly dealt with the issue as under :-
However, it is evident that apart from licensing/sale of software, the appellant has to undertake quite a lot of activities which are advisory in nature. These activities though inextricably connected with sale/licensing of software, are in the nature of services. These services involve consultation and advice. In developing and licensing for software business applications, the appellants have to employ a large number of qualified engineers apart from other professionals. In order to install their software in a particular industry/company, they have to provide lot of advise related to software engineering. It should be borne in mind that the scope of consulting engineers is not limited only to the traditional branches of engineering such as mechanical, electrical and civil. Engineering techniques are applied even in management. In this sense, software engineers would also come within the ambit of Consulting Engineers as per the Finance Act, 1994. Apart from this, from the very fact that the Government of India chose to issue an exemption Notification on 28-2-1999 services rendered by Consulting Engineers in relation to Software clearly indicates that the Government of India has recognized the Software Engineers also as Consulting Engineers.
We have no reason to disagree with the above view, which is well-considered. Accordingly, the impugned order is affirmed and this appeal is dismissed.