M/S Elixir Infra Corporation vs. State Of U.P. And 2 Others

Heard Shri Ishank Srivastava holding brief of Sri Punit Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri Ankur Agarwal, learned Standing Counsel for the State-respondents.

Present petition has been filed for the following reliefs:- "i) Issue a Writ, Order or Direction in nature of "Certiorari" thereby quashing the Impugned Order U/s 73 of GST Act, 2017 in term of DRC 07 Dated 24.12.2023 for financial year 2017-18 passed by the opposite party no. 3, i.e. Deputy Commissioner, State Tax, Kanpur Sector-24, Kanpur(D), Kanpur II, Uttar Pradesh, by means of which the O.P. No. 3 has raised the demand of Rs. 10,77,365.74/- along with interest and penalty to the petitioner's firm, which is made in gross violation of the principles of natural Justice; NO physical/oral hearing in the matter was afforded to Petitioner, adverse material has not been confronted to Petitioner resulting in a most UNFAIR TRIAL. (Contained as Annexure No.1). ii) Issue an appropriate writ, order or direction to give the benefit of Under Section 75 (4) of GST Act 2017 to the petitioner's company."

Submission has been made that notices issued under Section 73 of the Act, were uploaded on 'Additional Notices and Orders' Tab of the G.S.T. Portal and consequently, the petitioner being unaware of issuance of the notice as well as passing of the order, could neither appear before the authority nor question the validity of the impugned order within the period of limitation .

Thus, according to the learned counsel for the petitioner the petitioner could not seek appropriate remedy against that order, within limitation. Reliance is placed on an earlier order of the Court in Writ Tax No.551 of 2023 (M/s Mohini Traders Vs. State of U.P. and Another) decided on 03.05.2023 [Neutral Citation No.2023:AHC:115008-DB].

On the other hand upon written instructions received learned Standing Counsel would contend that the assessing officer is not to blame for any error being cited by the assessee. Referring to the web portal available to the assessing officer, it had been indicated that there is no option/ choice available to the assessing officer to upload the order in the manner that it may reflect under any one of the particular tabs visible to the assessee. On query made, Shri Ankur Agarwal fairly states that if it all issue may have to be addressed by the GST Network a separate entity constituted to design maintain and run the web portal.

At present, it does appear that the petitioner is entitled to a benefit of doubt. No material exist to reject the contention being advanced that the impugned order was not reflecting under the tab "view notices and orders". On merits, as noted in the earlier orders an other dispute exists whether all replies and annexures to the replies as filed by the assessee were displayed to the assessing officer and whether those have been considered. We find, no useful purpose may be served for keeping this petition pending or calling for a counter affidavit or even relegating the petitioner to the available statutory remedy. The entire disputed amount is lying in deposit with the State Government. Therefore, there is no outstanding demand. Accordingly, the writ petition is disposed of, with a direction, the assessee may treat the impugned order as the final notice and submit his written reply within a period of two weeks. Thereupon the assessing officer may issue a fresh notice to the petitioner in the manner prescribed with at least fifteen days clear notice. The petitioner undertakes to appear on the date fixed. Appropriate reasoned and speaking order may be passed within a further period of one month from the date of service of notice on the petitioner. Order Date :- 18.7.2025 K.K. Maurya (Praveen Kumar Giri, J.) (Shekhar B. Saraf, J.) KAMLESH KUMAR MAURYA High Court of Judicature at Allahabad