The Delhi High Court has directed Goods and Services Tax ( GST ) department to either open the online portal so as to enable the petitioner to file the Form TRAN-1 electronically or to accept the same manually on or before 20.11.2019.
The petitioner contended that, it is engaged in the business of trading of steel pipes and is registered under the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017. Before the introduction of the GST Act, as on 30.06.2017, the petitioner had a closing stock of pipes purchased from M/s Avon Steel Industries Private Limited of Rs. 71,35,431/- inclusive of excise duty of Rs.7,92,826/-. Petitioner was entitled to the transition of credit of the amount of Excise duty in terms of Section 140 (iii) of the GST Act. In order to avail transition of credit, petitioner was required to submit a declaration in Form TRAN-1 on the GST Portal within the stipulated period of 90 days. Since a large number of taxpayers could not complete the process within the aforesaid period on account of technical glitches and difficulties faced by them, the government extended the time period for filing TRAN-1 several times and lastly on the recommendation of GST Council, it was extended up to 27.12. 2017.
The Petitioner also submitted that, Pursuant to the aforesaid extension, the petitioner filed Form TRAN-1 on the common portal before the deadline. However, it was unable to log in to the common portal between 24.12.2017 to 27.12.2017 and avail transition of credit, presumably because of low bandwidth, given the fact that a large number of assessees all over India were trying to submit the declaration in Form TRAN-1 before the last date i.e. on 27.12.2017. Petitioner has annexed the screenshot of the Form TRAN-1, available on the common portal along with the petition.
The division bench comprising of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sanjeev Narula has said that, “the factual position in the present case is not any different and thus, we allow the present petition and direct the respondents to either open the online portal so as to enable the petitioner to file the Form TRAN-1 electronically or to accept the same manually on or before 20.11.2019”.
The Court also directed to process the petitioner’s claim in accordance with law once the GST Form TRAN–1 is filed.
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