The Patna High Court while cautioning the Goods and Service Tax (GST) officer to be careful in the Future observed that the GST orders are being issued without giving any opportunity to taxpayers as a huge difference is noticed between Original Demand and Rectified Demand.
The Government Pleader under instructions fairly states that the authority below namely the Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, (Patliputra), Pant Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna, Bihar committed a mistake in passing the impugned order dated 14th of February, 2021 in Form GST DRC-01 and summary of the order in Form GST DRC-07 as also the rectification order dated 12th of April, 2021 and summary of Rectification/Withdrawal Order dated 12th of April, 2021.
The division bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice S. Kumar said “we only fail to understand as to why the officer did not apply his mind at the time of passing of the impugned order. It is only when this Court pointed out the difference, wide enough for anyone to notice in imposing the amount of penalty, did the officer, realizing his mistake, agreed to rectify the same. We only caution the officer to be careful in the future and not commit such a mistake again, for such type of mistake not only causes harassment to the parties but also shatters the faith of the people in the system. Illustratively, as against the original demand of Rs. 11 crores, the officer while reviewing his own order reduced it to 18 lacs and in another case from 8 crores to 2.8 crores.”
The court quashed the impugned order in Form GST DRC-01, a summary of the order in Form GST DRC-07 vide Reference passed by Respondent, the Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, (Patliputra), Pant Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna, Bihar, as also the rectification order dated 12th of April, 2021 and summary of Rectification/Withdrawal Order dated 12th of April, 2021 with a direction to the Assessing Officer to pass a fresh order in terms of the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules 2017 as also the Bihar Goods and Service Tax Rules 2017.
The Counsels that appeared for the petitioner were Advocate Aryan Sinha, Advocate Dr. Avinash Poddar, Advocate Mr. Puneet Siddhartha, Advocate Mr. Ravi Kumar, and for the respondent Advocate Vivek Prasad.
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