Inability to file Appeal due to Glitches on GST Portal: Offline Appeal shall be Permitted If No Other Method ‘Notified’ by Commissioner, rules Allahabad HC [Read Order]

“The taxing authorities cannot stop any assessee from claiming his statutory right, as provided under this Act in the garb of technicality.”

A Single Bench of the Allahabad High Court, in a major relief to the assessee, M/s Yash Kothari Public Charitable Trust, has held that offline filing of Goods and Services Tax (GST) appeal shall be permitted if no other method was notified by the commissioner.

The assessee was unable to file an appeal online in the GST Portal, as per the Section 107 of Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2018 due to an error in the web portal.

According to the assessee, Rule 108 provides for the procedure and appeal to the Appellate Authority is to be filed in Form GST APL-01 alongwith relevant documents either electronically or otherwise as may be notified by the Commissioner. In the present case, no other method was “notified” by the commissioner in regard to filing of appeals.

As per the submission of assessee's counsel Nishant Mishra, once the Commissioner has not made any notification or the State Government has issued any notification notifying the other mode of filing of an appeal, then the filing of appeal offline by the assessee cannot be denied by the department.

He further contended that, once the Commissioner has not made any notification or the State

Government has issued any notification notifying the other mode of filing of an appeal, then the filing of appeal offline by the assessee cannot be denied by the department.

On behalf of the respondent-revenue, it was submitted that, wherein the problem of technical glitches in filing of appeal was discussed by the Commissioner and a direction was issued to all the Appellate Authorities throughout the State to get the matter resolved through the IT Cell and entertain the appeal online, relying on the circular issued by the Commissioner, Commercial Tax, U.P. dated 11.08.2022.

Observing that, “The Appellate Authority is there to adjudicate the matter, which is before it under the provisions of the Act, and it cannot stop any aggrieved person from approaching the forum through filing the appeal restricting his right”, the Single Bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal held that, “the taxing authorities cannot stop any assessee from claiming his statutory right, as provided under this Act in the garb of technicality.”

To Read the full text of the Order CLICK HERE

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