A Single Bench of the Madras High Court has recently set aside the order canceling the GST Registration of the petitioner-Raj Kishore Engineering Construction Pvt Ltd in the absence of a Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal. The matter was subsequently reversed to the First Appellate Authority.
The case of the writ petitioner – assessee is he could not file returns owing to certain circumstances which the assessee could not anticipate.
A non-speaking order was passed by the appellate authority dismissing the appeal for belated filing of GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B. No reasons as to why the appeal was dismissed was recorded in the order.
The GST Appellate Tribunal being yet to be established, petitioner had no option but to approach the High Court with a Writ Petition. The petition was based on violation of natural justice principles.
On behalf of the revenue, Umesh Rao K pointed out that revocation of registration itself was a consequence of non-filing of returns and therefore, the assessee’s argument is a vicious cycle of sorts.
J V Niranjan, on the other hand, submitted for the petitioner that the returns could not be filed for the ten months period from March 2020 to December 2020 owing to Coronavirus pandemic and consequent lock down.
The Single Bench of Justice M Sundar observed that, “The Appellate Authority should have given some dispositive reasoning on this aspect of the matter. The Appellate Authority should have gone into the reasons adduced by the writ petitioner – assessee regarding the belated filing of returns and should have returned a finding one way or the other.” and set aside the impugned order reversing the matter to the appellate authority to consider the matter on merits in accordance with law.
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