ValkyaEditorial

Tagged “service-tax”

9 articles on service-tax.

TribunalCustoms, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, Bangalore

Karinje Sripathi Bhat v. Commissioner of Central Excise (2026): renting residential premises for student accommodation is exempt under the negative list

A Bangalore Bench of CESTAT held that a building rented to an educational foundation for student accommodation falls within Section 66D(m) of the Finance Act 1994 — renting of a residential dwelling for use as residence — and is not service-taxable, because the exemption turns on residential use, not on the identity of the tenant.

Valkya Editorial··6 min
Supreme CourtSupreme Court of India

Northern Operating Systems: how the Supreme Court read substance over form into cross-border secondment and pulled overseas group transfers into service-tax (and GST) net

On 19 May 2022, a three-judge bench presided by Justice Uday Umesh Lalit — through a judgment authored by Justice S. Ravindra Bhat — held that the secondment of expatriate employees by overseas group entities of *Northern Operating Systems Pvt. Ltd.* constituted a taxable supply of manpower under the Finance Act 1994, attracting reverse-charge service tax. Substance, not the form of the secondment contract, was held to govern; the employment matrix — payroll, social security, the right of repatriation — remaining with the overseas entity was decisive. The Court denied the Revenue the extended period of limitation under *Section 73*. The judgment has since travelled into the GST era through a wave of *Section 74* notices and a moderating CBIC instruction.

Valkya Editorial··13 min