Page 127 - GSTL_18th June 2020_Vol 37_Part 3

2020 ] MGF EVENT MANAGEMENT v. COMMISSIONER OF CENTRAL EXCISE, DELHI 341
Saket, New Delhi and (e) The Metropolitan, Jaipur. Appellant have been paying
monthly charges to owner of Metropolitan Mall, Gurgaon and The Plaza Mall,
Gurgaon only and no charges have been paid to the developers of the three malls
towards temporary space utilized. They are paying service tax under taxable cat-
egory of “Sale of Space” and “Renting of immovable property” which was duly
accepted by the department hence, no allegation is made with regard to the
above activity with respect to Malls from whom no monthly charges have been
taken. Similarly, upon the parking charges, no Service Tax is being discharged as
no amount is paid to the Mall owners and hence department adopted a biased
approach and challenged the same commercial arrangement for creating demand
on parking income under “Management, Maintenance or Repair Services”. It is
further added that dual approach of the department upon same commercial
transaction is unjustified. They have further claimed that instances exist where
the service provider not only provides the services on free of cost basis but also
gives money or incentives to the service recipient to avail its services like in
Computerized Reservation System (CRS) software provided by Galileo India,
Amadeus India and Calleo Distribution to encourage their business. In fact they
pay incentives to Air Cargo Agent or Travel Agents for using the software. Simi-
larly, in the present case, the Mall owners also find it more commercial viable to
give space to the appellant for managing the parking on its own account instead
of bearing the cost and expenses of the managing the parking space themselves.
They claimed that renting of immovable property service more appropriately
classify the transaction but as no consideration is charged under this category,
they cannot be made liable for service tax.
4. The Learned Departmental Representative, however, vehemently ar-
gued supporting the Order-in-Original and maintained that the services of the
appellant was duly covered under the category of ‘management, maintenance or
repairs’ and attracted levy of service tax in terms of the provisions of Section
65(105)(zzg) of the Finance Act, 1994. He has supported the impugned order and
has submitted that it was highly improbable that there was no agreement be-
tween the appellant and the mall owners as no mall owner would allow unhin-
dered activities at the will of the lessee/occupants of the premises without any
preconditions and without any financial consideration. He further supported the
finding that the appellant is engaged in providing the service of ‘management,
maintenance or repairs’ of malls and in consideration thereof the appellant was
given right of space, including parking area for collecting income earned from
the parking fees. He further argued that it is admitted that parking space in the
malls belong to the mall owners and it cannot be accepted that the applicant has
been given permission to use such valuable space without any consideration. It is
also an admitted fact that the applicant is incurring huge liabilities in managing
and maintaining the parking space including the costs paid to the third party
agency through which the appellant was managing the parking facilities. As the
third party agency was paying service tax on the invoices issued to the appellant,
the appellant in turn was also liable to pay service tax for the same service which
it was providing to the mall owners for which the consideration was in terms of
receipts of the parking fees collected from the visitors.
5. We have carefully gone through the rival arguments and have pe-
rused the record of the appeal.

GST LAW TIMES  18th June 2020  127