M/S. Aadinath Industries, & Anr. vs. Union Of INDIA, & Ors.

Held

The Court held that the Petitioner cannot be deprived of their legitimate Input Tax Credit (ITC) of Rs. 4,15,516/- due to technical glitches on the GST common portal. The Court found the present case to be covered by its previous decision in M/s Blue Bird Pure Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India & Ors. The reasoning was that the credit standing in favour of an assessee is considered property, and an assessee cannot be deprived of such property except by the authority of law, as per Article 300(A) of the Constitution of India. No law was brought to the Court's notice that extinguished this right. The Court directed the respondents to either open the online portal to enable the petitioner to file the rectified TRAN-I Form electronically or to accept the same manually with correction on or before October 2, 2019. The petitioner's revised claim would be processed in accordance with law once the corrected GST TRAN-I Form is filed. The petition was disposed of in these terms.

Facts

The petitioner, M/s. Aadinath Industries, attempted to file Form GST TRAN-1 on December 27, 2017, to claim Input Tax Credit (ITC) of Rs. 4,15,516/-. The GST common portal displayed an error indicating an invalid service tax number. Despite creating a "Ticket" and receiving a response from the helpdesk requesting the GSTIN, which was provided on January 13, 2018, subsequent attempts to file the form resulted in the same error. The petitioner also lodged complaints with the Superintendent Commissioner (GST). The original deadline for filing TRAN-1 was January 31, 2019, extended to March 31, 2019. On March 28, 2019, the petitioner was informed via email that their case was approved for another opportunity to file TRAN-1 by the ITGRC Committee. However, on March 29, 2019, the portal again showed an invalid registration number error. The petitioner filed a writ petition seeking directions to allow them to file Form GST TRAN-1 and claim the ITC.

Key Issues

1. Whether the Petitioner can be deprived of Input Tax Credit (ITC) of Rs. 4,15,516/- due to technical glitches on the GST common portal? (Question of law) Petitioner's Argument: The petitioners contended that they should not be deprived of their legitimate ITC on account of technical issues faced on the common portal. They relied on the decision of this Court in M/s Blue Bird Pure Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India & Ors, which dealt with a similar situation where a petitioner was unable to file TRAN-1 due to errors and was granted an opportunity to rectify or refile. They also cited Bhargava Motors v. Union of India and Kusum Enterprises Pvt. Ltd v. Union of India. Respondents' Argument: The respondents' counsel fairly conceded that the present case was covered by the decision in M/s Blue Bird Pure Pvt. Ltd. (supra). No other arguments were recorded for the respondents.