Is levy of service tax on office rent justified?

Well this is yet another new feature introduced by this budget. According to the new rule, the property owners who rented their immovable properties for commercial purposes would now have to pay tax on the rent earned. This has incensed the landlord-tenet community. The point of contention being that the renting of property doesn’t come under any service provided, so why this service tax? Well this what I feel:
1. This would reduce the margins of small and medium retailers as they would now have to squeeze out this new service tax besides VAT and other taxes on their sales.
2. It might give rise to more inflation because in order to offset this tax, the retailers might pass it on to the consumers.
3. If we leave the inflation part, the tax might be justified due to the exorbitant earnings by the landlords from rentals in view of the increasing property prices. The government would definitely want to put a check on it.
4. Being not a commerce student, I don’t have much idea about taxation, but isn’t it lead to double taxation. The government in already taking income tax from the retailer on his earnings. He would shell out the service tax on rental from his earnings only. So isn’t it harsh on him to pay so much taxes. I might be wrong on this, there might be ways to get exemption from the income tax. Kindly enlighten me on this
Well, who says ET is difficult to read. I have assimilated this information from our dreaded newspaper itself.