GST Assessee not Entitled to Additional Personal Hearing Opportunity if they Fail to Appear on Scheduled Date: Delhi HC [Read Order]

The Delhi HighCourt recently held that any assessee who has been allotted a specific date for personal hearing by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) department, pertaining to their assessment does not become entitled to an additional opportunity of personal hearing if they fail to appear on the stipulated date and time.

The decision was given by the Delhi High Court against a petition filed by M/s Future Art & Display, through its partner Tariq Ahmad, assailing an adjudication order dated 25 December 2023 pertaining to the financial year 2017-18, which was passed by the Sales Tax Officer Class II/AVATO, Ward 94.

Along with challenging the order, the writ petitioner also contested the validity of Notification No.9/2023-Central Tax dated 31st March, 2023 and Notification No.9/2023-State Tax dated 22nd June, 2023.

The subject-matter show cause notice (SCN) had been issued to the petitioner on 26 September 2023, against which reply was filed on 26 October 2023. The petitioner was served a reminder dated 10 November 2023 which fixed the date for personal hearing as 17 November 2023.

However, the petitioner did not appear on the scheduled date, leading the adjudicating authority to pass the impugned order on the basis of the reply that had earlier been filed by the petitioner.

The petitioner, represented by Pulkit Verma and Saket Jain contended that though he had filed a reply to the SCN dated 26th September, 2023, he was not provided a personal hearing. The petitioner further submitted that the impugned order is a non-speaking order which was passed without considering the reply filed by the Petitioner

Sandeep Tyagi, Special Public Counsel and Vaishali Gupta, Panel Counsel (Civil) appeared for the respondents.

The Bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Justice Shail Jain at the outset recorded that the validity of the impugned notifications was under consideration by this Court in a batch of petitions with the lead petition being W.P.(C) 16499/2023 titled ‘DJST Traders Pvt. Ltd. vs. Union of India and Ors.

The Division Bench noted that the validity of the impugned notifications is subject to the Supreme Court decision in S.L.P No 4240/2025 titled M/s HCC-SEW-MEIL-AAG JV v. Assistant Commissioner of State Tax & Ors, however in instances where the challenge is to the parallel State Notifications, the same are under consideration by the Delhi High Court in a batch of petitions led by W.P.(C) 9214/2024 titled ‘Engineers India Limited v. Union of India & Ors’.

Given the circumstances, it was there was no violation of principles of natural justice as a proper opportunity for hearing had in fact been provided.

The Delhi High Court thus held that the impugned order did not warrant interference in the exercise of writ jurisdiction and disposed of the petition with liberty to the petitioner to file a statutory appeal under Section 107 of the CGST Act before the Appellate Authority by 30 September 2025, subject to compliance with the requisite pre-deposit.

The Court additionally directed that portal access be provided within one week for enabling the petitioner to download the necessary documents and that the petition would not be dismissed on the ground of limitation if filed by the stipulated date.

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