Century Products vs. State Of West Bengal And Ors.

Held

The Court held that the writ petition, initially filed for the expeditious disposal of the refund application, has served its purpose as the application has now been disposed of. While acknowledging its power to set aside orders passed during the pendency of a writ petition even with an alternative remedy available, the Court found this case not to be one where such interference was warranted. The Court reasoned that the petitioner's act of applying to the relevant authority for processing the refund implicitly granted that authority jurisdiction to both allow and reject the request, thus negating any apparent jurisdictional error. Consequently, the Court dismissed the application (CAN 1 of 2025) without passing any order on its merits, stating that the impugned order is appealable. The Court explicitly noted that it had not examined the merits of the refund application and directed the petitioner to pursue the statutory remedy before the appellate authority, which would decide any appeal without being influenced by the High Court's observations.

Facts

The petitioner, Century Products, filed a writ petition seeking a mandamus to process their refund application dated June 9, 2025, for ₹1,77,338/- (₹88,669/- each under CGST and SGST) for April 2025, along with applicable interest. During the pendency of the writ petition, GST authorities issued a show-cause notice on September 9, 2025. The petitioner replied on September 16, 2025. Subsequently, on October 31, 2025, the adjudicating authority passed an order under Section 54 of the CGST/WBGST Act, rejecting the refund request. The petitioner then filed an application (CAN 1 of 2025) to challenge this order.

Key Issues

1. Whether the Court should entertain a challenge to the order dated October 31, 2025, passed by the adjudicating authority, by way of an application within the pending writ petition, when the original writ petition sought expeditious disposal of the refund application and the said application has now been disposed of. Petitioner's contention: The petitioner argued that the show-cause notice and the order dated October 31, 2025, suffer from jurisdictional errors. They sought to challenge these orders directly through an application in the writ proceedings. State respondents' contention: The State respondents argued that the petitioner should not be allowed to challenge the adjudication orders via an application. They contended that the writ petition's objective of expeditious disposal of the refund application has been met. Furthermore, they asserted that the petitioner has an alternative statutory remedy before the appellate authority under Section 107 of the CGST Act, 2017.