Star Printing And Packaging vs. The State Of West Bengal And Ors.

Held

The Court held that the writ petition should be disposed of with directions to enable the petitioner to file an appeal before the Appellate Tribunal. The Court granted the petitioner four weeks from the date of the order to prefer an appeal before the GSTAT Kolkata under Section 112 of the CGST Act, 2017/WBGST Act, 2017. The respondents were restrained from taking any coercive action against the petitioner for this four-week period. It was clarified that the interim protection granted by the Court would cease to operate and stand vacated ipso facto if an appeal was not filed within the stipulated four weeks. The parties were permitted to rely on the pleadings filed before the High Court. The Court did not expressly decide on the exclusion of the pendency period for limitation, but by granting time to file the appeal, it implicitly allowed the petitioner to pursue this avenue.

Facts

The petitioner, Star Printing and Packaging, filed a writ petition before the High Court at Calcutta. The petitioner contended that the Appellate Tribunal has been constituted and is functional. Therefore, the petitioner sought the transfer of the writ petition to the Appellate Tribunal and requested four weeks' time to prefer an appeal before the GSTAT Kolkata under Section 112 of the CGST Act, 2017/WBGST Act, 2017. The petitioner also requested that the period during which the writ petition was pending be excluded for the purpose of computing the limitation period for filing the appeal. The State respondents were restrained from taking any coercive action against the petitioner for a period of four weeks.

Key Issues

1. Whether the writ petition should be transferred to the Appellate Tribunal given its functional status, and if so, should the petitioner be granted four weeks to file an appeal under Section 112 of the CGST Act, 2017/WBGST Act, 2017? 2. Whether the period during which the writ petition was pending before the High Court should be excluded for computing the limitation period for filing the appeal before the Appellate Tribunal? The petitioner argued that since the Appellate Tribunal is now functional, the appropriate course of action is to permit them to file an appeal before it, with a request for exclusion of the pendency period for limitation. The State respondents' arguments are not recorded in the judgment.