The Delhi High Court allowed the refund of Input Tax Credit (ITC) under Goods and Service Tax(GST) based on the shipping bill and invoices and set aside the rejection of the refund claim of ITC.
The petitioner Star Publishers Distributors challenged the order (‘the impugned order’) whereby the petitioner’s appeal against the refund rejection order dated 31.05.2021 was rejected. The petitioner had filed an application seeking a refund of the Input Tax Credit amounting to ₹13,71,484/- in requisite form (GST RFD-01) on 16.04.2021.
Whilst the petitioner’s application for refund for the period 01.04.2019 to 31.03.2020 amounting to ₹4,96,416/- was allowed by an order dated 31.05.2021, the petitioner’s application for refund for the period 01.06.2018 to 31.03.2019 amounting to ₹8,75,068/- was rejected on the ground that the petitioner’s application was filed beyond the period as stipulated under Section 54(1) of the Central Goods & Services Tax Act, 2017 (‘the CGST Act’).
The appeal filed by the petitioner was disposed of by the impugned order dated 30.06.2023. The Appellate Authority accepted the petitioner’s contention that the petitioner’s application was not barred by limitation given the Notification No.13/2022 – Central Tax dated 05.07.2022, whereby the period with effect from the 1st day of March 2020 to the 28th day of February 2022 was required to be excluded to compute the period under Section 54(1) of the CGST Act.
However, the Appellate Authority rejected the appeal on the ground that no documentary evidence was submitted by the petitioner regarding the mode in which the export has taken place and in the absence of such details, the commencement date for calculating the limitation period could not be ascertained.
A division bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Amit Mahajan observed that the Adjudicating Authority had not raised any issue regarding the non-furnishing of documents by the petitioner. On the contrary, the Adjudicating Authority had partly allowed the application for a refund for the tax period 01.04.2019 to 31.03.2020.
The petitioner had also filed a tabular statement indicating the date of the invoices, the date of the shipping bills and the date of receipt of remittances. Section 54(1) of the CGST Act stipulates that an application for a refund may be filed within two years from the relevant date. The expression ‘relevant date’ is defined in Explanation (2) to Section 54 of the CGST Act
Since there was no controversy as to the evidence produced by the petitioner in respect of the exports before the Adjudicating Authority, the court allowed the writ petition and the respondents were directed to process the petitioner’s claim for refund along with applicable interest.
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