- (1.) The assessee who allegedly evaded the service tax has taken shelter under the writ jurisdiction of this Court in assailing the order of search and seizure to be in excess of the power prescribed under Section 82 of the Finance Act. It is undisputed that after the incorporation, the petitioner took the registration under Finance (No. II) Act, 1994 under the head "Construction Services" and subsequently amended the same by including the "Works Contract Services" with effect from January 20, 2004. An intimation as to the service tax audit is issued upon the petitioner and the relevant records and documents pertaining to the period for which the tax audit is undertaken is furnished from time to time. Senior Intelligence Officer attached to the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence conducted search at the office of the petitioner and seized certain documents upon issuing the summons on the spot on 7th June, 2013. It further appears that two cheques for Rs. 1,00,00,000/- each was handed over to the authorities by the authorized representative of the petitioner towards the service tax liability.
(2.) By a subsequent letter dated 27th June, 2013, the petitioner requested the Central Excise Officer to release the seized records as the non-availability of the same is creating a tremendous difficulties in operating day to day business activities which includes one pen drive. Immediately thereafter, the writ petition came to be filed before this Court challenging the summons issued on 7th June, 2013 with further direction to hand over all the documents including the pen drive seized at the time of search and seizure. At the time of admission of the writ petition, an objection came from the respondent authorities that the document pertaining to the seizure annexed to this writ petition have been tempered with by incorporating one pen drive which was never seized by the authorities. For such reason, the petitioner was directed to produce the original seizure list handed over at the time search and seizure to ascertain whether there has been any tempering and/or interpolation in the said document.
(3.) The matter appeared on 12th August, 2013 when the petitioner candidly admits that the pen drive was never seized. An explanation was sought to be offered that the Charter Accountant for the purpose of convenience recorded the word "one pen drive" in the original seizure list having no intention to blame the respondent authorities. The advocate-on-record while annexing the documents inadvertently photo copied the same without any intention to gain out of it.;