The Allahabad High Court while setting aside the orders passed by the authority held that service of notice on truck driver or fixation of copy of the order on truck is none of the methods prescribed under section 169 of the CGST Act.
The petitioner, Ranchi Carrying Corporation stated that none of the notices as are required to be served under Section 129 of the GST Act have been served upon the petitioner, as such the proceedings initiated and concluded against the petitioner are ex-parte proceedings.
It was submitted that on the basis of instructions, the order was served on the driver of the truck in question and secondly the order MOV-06 and MOV-07 was also served on the driver of the truck and with regard to the order MOV-09, the same was neither served on the driver nor on the owner and was served through a fixation on the truck in question.
The Counsel for the petitioner argues that Section 169 of the GST Act provides for the manner of service of notice in certain circumstances which was not complied with by the authority.
The single-judge bench of Justice Pankaj Bhatia held that at no point in time, the petitioner was granted an opportunity of submitting his reply, and the grounds taken by the petitioner before the Appellate Authority were not considered recording them to be an afterthought. Thus, on a plain reading, a failure of natural justice has been occasioned to the petitioner.
Therefore the court set aside both the orders with a liberty to the respondents to conclude proceedings against the petitioner, in accordance with the law.
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