The Chhattisgarh High Court, in a recent ruling, directed the Goods & Services Tax (GST) Department to restore the registration certificates of the petitioner companies before amendment and held that, the tax liability is absolved.
The petitioner, M/s Sunil Kumar Agrawal deals in the business of undertaking works contract/order for deploying Heavy Earth Movers Machinery (HEMM) for execution of tasks/activities like overburden extraction and removal in mining, constructions of roads, bridges, canals, river channels etc.
Petitioner submitted an application before the respondent No.4-Commercial Tax Officer, Circle-II, Ragiarh for amending C-Forms issued to petitioner under the Act of 1956 & the Act of 2005. Based on application, petitioner was issued amended C-Forms adding and entering ‘HSD for mining machineries’. Based on entry made in registration certificate, petitioner started purchasing inter-state HSD at concessional rate of tax.
The respondent GST Department issued notice under Section 49 (1) of the Act of 2005 to the petitioner calling upon to explain as why entry made in registration certificate of petitioner be not
deleted. Petitioner submitted reply to said notice, but respondent No.2-Deputy Divisional Commissioner, Commercial Tax, Bilaspur Division No.2 overlooking contents of reply and provisions of law, passed impugned order currently challenged by petitioner and deleted entry in registration certificate of petitioner regarding ‘mining and HSD’, according to the submissions of the petitioner.
The Respondent Department along with its reply filed only one notice as Annexure R-2 with the title ‘amended notice’ written by hand and correcting provisions from Section 49 (1) to Section 49 (3).
It was observed by the Court that, Show Cause Notice under Section 49 (3) is not stated to be issued nor placed on record by learned counsel for the State and held that, the order impugned is liable to be and was thereby quashed.
The consequential order of demand of tax including penalty was also quashed,absolving the assessee’s tax liability by the Single Bench of Justice Parth Prateem Sahu.
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