The Kerala High Court has held that the omission to fill Part-B of the E-Way Bill due to technical glitches in the GST portal cannot be treated as a valid ground for avoiding penalty and detention under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law.
The petitioner, Garuda Timber Traders contented before the High Court that it could not upload part B of the e-way bill. But Garuda took a printout of the e-way bill and began its transportation. The petitioner also pleaded the Court to declare “the provisions empowering the GST officials” to demand tax and penalty and to detain goods and vehicles, as unconstitutional “till the smooth, efficient and glitches free functioning of the GST network system is guaranteed to assessees.”
Justice Dama Sesadri Naidu rejected the plea of the petitioners to interfere and observed that the language and the legislative intent clear. “Courts, in the name of discretion, cannot do violence to the statutory mandate. Discretion smooths the edges, but does not cut corners. Here, I see no interpretative ambiguity or legislative crevasses to be filled in,” he said.
Citing a catena of decisions including the Allahabad High Court decision in Gati Kintetsu Express, the Court held that the petitioners can have the provisional release of the goods, pending further adjudication under Section 129(1) of the Act, only if it complies with the statutory mandate. If it provides a bank guarantee for the tax and the penalty, besides executing a bond for the value of goods, as directed under Rule 140 of the KSGST Rules, the authorities will provisionally release the goods.
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