The Allahabad High Court will ascertain the liability of GST Official towards software glitches causing harassment of poor assessees.
The petitioner, M/s Ansari Construction was served show cause notice by the respondent authority proposing to cancel the registration certificate of the petitioner mainly on the ground that the petitioner has failed to file the return for a continuous period of six months.
In pursuance of the notice, an ex-parte order was passed cancelling the registration of the petitioner by invoking the powers under Section 29(2)(5) of Uttar Pradesh Goods and Services Tax, 2017.
The petitioner filed an application under Section 13 of U.P. GST Act 2017 for revocation of cancellation of registration on the ground that the petitioner had submitted all the pending returns under GST-3B and GSTR-1 and, thus, the entire tax liability stood clear with the late fees.
In response to the application filed by the petitioner the respondent authority which was completely vague and did not even point out as to what ground the reply was proposed to be sought, the petitioner appeared and apprised that all the returns have already been filed, however, despite the petitioner having replied, the respondent authority rejected the application for revocation of registration.
The petitioner further seeks recall of the order to the extent that it directs for payment of cost of Rs.10,000 from the applicant as well as the observations made personally against the applicant and prays that the same may be deleted or expunged.
R.C. Shukla, learned counsel for the respondents, on the basis of instructions received, states that the taxpayer has filed GSTR 3B upto November 2019 and further there are no dues pending towards tax, late fee, interest upto November 2019 and the said instructions clearly record that there are no dues of tax payer pending upto November 2019.
The single-judge bench of Justice Pankaj Bhatia observed that the appellate authority has also committed the same manifest arbitrariness in deciding the appeal, the recording of the reason that facts cannot be verified at the appellate level is wholly arbitrary and militates against the whole purpose of statutory appeal under an enactment.
The court stayed direction for payment of cost as against the applicant and the observations shall remain till the next date of hearing i.e. February 3, 2021.
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