Refund cannot be rejected on ground that address on FIRC is other than place from where services were availed: CESTAT

The appellant holds Service Tax registration for the services in the nature of Information Technology Software Service, Rent-a-Cab Service, Security/Detective Agency Service, Man Power Recruitment/Supply Agency Service, Legal Consultancy Service.

They filed refund claims under Rule 5 of Cenvat Credit Rules (CCR), 2004 for refund of the unutilized cenvat credit.

One of the ground of rejection of the above refund claims was that the Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate  (FIRC) is received by their Bangalore office and therefore does not match with the address of the appellant at Chennai.

On this issue it was stated that the FIRC statement bears the address of their Bangalore office. It was submitted that the appellant-company has only one bank account which is at Bangalore. The banker has issued the FIRC copy with the address at Bangalore as per their records. A single bank account cannot be registered with multiple addresses and therefore the requirement for furnishing FIRC has been complied.

In this matter CESTAT also held that the rejection of the refund claim cannot be justified.

In the result, the impugned order is set aside with consequential relief.

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