ILLEGALLY AS SERVICE TAX BY BUILDER
- Posted by CERC India
- Posted in Press Releases
CERS helps buyer get refund of amount charged
illegally as Service Tax by Builder
Ahmedabad, January 23rd 2013: Exposing fraudulent practice adopted by builder community to fetch extra amount from the buyers, Consumer Education & Research Society (CERS) has won a case against an Ahmedabad based builder, who had illegally charged an amount of Rs. 28,800 on the pretext of service tax in the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Ahmedabad (City). The Forum ordered the builder to pay the complainant the amount charged as service tax with 9% interest along with a compensation of Rs. 5,000 for the mental agony caused and Rs. 2,000 towards litigation costs involved. The amount involved had been collected as service tax from a gullible buyer of a flat on the pretext of providing services in the premises despite the fact that the buyer was not liable to pay it as he was not the owner of the flat when the said service was provided and more importantly, the builder never deposited the amount of service tax to the concerned government department.
As per the case details, Rahul M. Talwaria, resident of Chandkheda area of the city, purchased a flat from Deluxe Purohit Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. Representatives from Deluxe Purohit Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd collected an amount of Rs. 28,800 on October 2, 2006, from Rahul towards service tax for the flat in question. About two years after paying this as service tax, Rahul came to know that he was not liable to pay the amount of service tax, as the flat was not transferred on his name when the services were provided. Citing this reason, when Rahul asked for the refund of the money, the builder refused bluntly saying the amount had already been deposited to the service tax department.
But when Rahul sought information in this regard from the concerned office under the provision of the RTI act, he realized the builder had never deposited the amount and also the fact that there was no account of the builder in the service tax department.
As a result of this repeated refusal from the builder, Rahul approached CERS and after verifying the facts, they filed a case against the builder in the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Ahmedabad (City).
No representative of the builder attended the hearing of the case and finally the consumer forum gave a ruling in favor of CERS.
For further information please contact Ms Pritee Shah (O) 079-27489945/46 .
