Rita Biswas vs. State Of West Bengal And Ors.

WPA/22449/2025HC CalcuttaGSTCNR WBCHCA045341202525 September 2025Bench: HON'BLE JUSTICE RAJA BASU CHOWDHURY2 pages

AI SummaryPartly Allowed

Facts

The petitioner, Rita Biswas, filed a writ petition seeking the withdrawal of an attachment order on her bank account. The attachment order was issued on June 18, 2024. This followed two orders passed against the petitioner under Section 73 of the WBGST/CGST Act, 2017, for the periods April 2018 to March 2019 (dated November 14, 2023) and April 2019 to March 2021 (dated February 28, 2024). The petitioner had filed two appeals against these orders under Section 107 of the said Act on September 8, 2025. The attachment order was issued prior to the filing of these appeals.

Held

The Court held that while the attachment order was issued prior to the filing of the appeals, and thus there appeared to be no initial irregularity in its issuance, the continuation of the attachment order was not permissible. The Court considered the peculiar facts of the case and noted that the appeals had been filed accompanied by the required pre-deposit, as stipulated for maintaining an appeal under Section 107(7) of the said Act. Therefore, the Court quashed the order of attachment. The Court found no other issues surviving in the writ petition and disposed of the matter accordingly, with no order as to costs. The ratio decidendi is that once an appeal is filed with the statutory pre-deposit, an antecedent attachment order should not be permitted to continue.

Key Issues

1. Whether the attachment order issued on June 18, 2024, was irregular, given that it was issued prior to the filing of appeals against the underlying orders under Section 107 of the WBGST/CGST Act, 2017. Petitioner's Contention: The petitioner implicitly argued that the attachment order should not have been continued, especially considering the subsequent filing of appeals. While not explicitly stated as an argument, the act of filing the writ petition to withdraw the attachment suggests this position. Revenue/State's Contention: The State contended that there was no irregularity in issuing the attachment order on June 18, 2024, because it was issued prior to the filing of the appeals. This position is supported by the Court's observation in paragraph 3 of the judgment.

Sections Cited

Section 73, Section 107, Section 107(7)

AI-generated summary — verify with the full judgment below

Cause title — parties, addresses and appearances

25.09.2025 sayandeep Sl. No. 08 Ct. No. 05 WPA 22449 of 2025 Rita Biswas Vs. State of West Bengal & ors. Mr. Prantik Garai Mr. Kumarjit Das Ms. Mou Saha …..for the petitioner Mr. A. Roy, Ld. GP Mr. Tanoy Chakraborty Mr. Saptak Sanyal ….for the State 1. The present writ petition has been filed, inter alia, with a prayer to withdraw the attachment of the petitioner’s bank account maintained with the PNB erstwhile Oriental Bank of Commerce, Salt Lake Branch At CF-51, Sector-I, Salt lake, Kolkata 700064. 2. Having heard the learned advocates appearing for the respective parties, I find that admittedly two several orders have been passed against the petitioner for the period April, 2018 to March 2019 dated 14th November, 2023 and April, 2019 to March 2021 dated 28th February, 2024 under the provisions of Section 73 of the WBGST/CGST Act, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as the “said Act”). It would also transpire from the record that two several appeals have been from the aforesaid orders under Section 107 of the said Act as would appear form GST APL 01 appearing at page 97 and page- 138 of the writ petition. It 2 would, however, transpire that the appeals have been filed on 8th September, 2025. 3. In the instant case, the attachment order has, however, been issued on 18th June, 2024 that is prior to filing of the appeal. As such there appears to be no

irregularity in issuing such attachment order.

However, considering the peculiar facts and noting that the appeal has been filed accompanied by a pre- deposit as it require for maintaining the appeal, I am of the view, having regard to the provisions contained in Section 107(7) of the said Act, the order of attachment cannot be permitted to continue any further and the same is accordingly quashed.

Since no other issue survives in the above writ petition, the same is accordingly disposed of. There shall be no order as to costs.

(Raja Basu Chowdhury, J.)

Reproduced from the public record of the Calcutta High Court. Verify against the court's own copy before relying on it. Income tax judgments are on bharattax.net.