In a significant ruling, the Karnataka High Court has directed the GST department to restore the cancelled GST registration as the assessee could not file the GST returns due to sudden demise of the auditor.
The petitioner, M/s Kolapudi Enoch Washington has contended that due to the untimely demise of his Auditor, he could not make GST payments on time leading to the show cause notice dated 24.02.2022 being issued by the respondents to the petitioner, who did not receive the same, since his e-mail account has spam filter, due to which, the petitioner was not aware of the show cause notice and did not submit his reply resulting in the respondent No.2 canceling the GST registration of the petitioner.
Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar accepted the contention of the petitioner that the appellate authority does not have any power to condone the delay in preferring an appeal under Section 107 of the CGST Act, in a given case, it is open for this Court to condone the delay by exercising its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
“In the instant case, it is the specific assertion of the petitioner that due to untimely demise of his Auditor and on account of bona fide reasons, unavoidable circumstances and sufficient cause, it was not possible for him to not only file the GST returns and make payment within the stipulated time but also could not prefer the appeal within the prescribed period. In my considered opinion, the explanation offered by the petitioner in not making GST payment, filing returns and preferring an appeal deserves to be accepted and by adopting a justice oriented approach, I deem it just and appropriate to set aside the impugned orders and direct the 2nd respondent to restore the GST registration of the petitioner, subject to payment of all dues by the petitioner,” the Court observed.
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