Human Error Led to ₹1 Crore GST ITC availment instead of ₹1 Lakh: Orissa HC Remits Matter for Rectification [Read Order]

The Orissa High Court was faced with a case where a clerical mistake while filing Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns led to an inflated Input Tax Credit (ITC) claim of more than ₹1 crore instead of the actually available ITC amount which was around ₹1 lakh.

The present writ was instituted by the petitioner Gautam Pattnaik against an order passed by the Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, CT & GST Circle, Cuttack-I under Section 73 of the GST Act. The order cited that discrepancies between GSTR-2B and GSTR-3B were noticed; leading to a demand of ₹3,27,65,030 raised against the petitioner.

The petitioner later approached the authorities under Section 161 of the Act seeking rectification, claiming that the inflated figures arose from a clerical error. However, his plea was rejected on 17 May 2025 on the ground of limitation.

Anup Narayan Mohanty appearing for the petitioner submitted that the error occurred when a new staff member inadvertently omitted shifted the decimal point while filing the return for November 2021, recording the ITC figure as ₹1,07,91,648 instead of ₹1,07,916.48 under both CGST and SGST heads.

It was further submitted that upon noticing the error, the petitioner immediately reversed the excess amount of ITC claim and sought rectification to reflect the correct figures. The wrong ITC was reversed in GSTR-3B for the month of January 2022-2023.

The Respondent was represented by Sunil Mishra, Standing Counsel, CT & GST (State).

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice Murahari Sri Raman verified a report submitted by the Assistant Commissioner during the proceedings.

Referencing the report, the Bench observed that the petitioner’s claim carried prima facie genuineness and accepted that the error stemmed from an error in feeding and uploading the figures which led to the figures ₹1,07,916.48 being disclosed as ₹1,07,91,648.00.

The Orissa High Court held that human errors of clerical or arithmetical nature must be permitted to be corrected.

Accordingly, the Court set aside the order rejecting the application under Section 161 and remitted the matter back to the Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, CT & GST Circle, Cuttack-I. The authority was further directed to permit the petitioner to rectify the figures, modify the order under Section 73 accordingly and complete the process within four weeks.

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