M/S Mahalaxmi Infra Contract LTD Through Its Authorised Signatory Valaniketan Kumar Shambhulal vs. Goods And Services Tax Council Through The Secretary Central Board Of Indirect Taxes And Customs

Held

The Court decided to allow the request for modification concerning the routing of the petitioner's request for opening the GSTN portal. It held that the petitioner, being assessed under the concerned jurisdictional State Tax Officer (Respondent No. 3), should make their request for opening the GSTN portal for corrections in terms of the prior writ petition directions through this officer. This was deemed to facilitate the process and avoid delay. Regarding the second issue, the Court was not satisfied that any modification was required for the observation made in the last paragraph of the previous judgment concerning Respondent No. 5's claim for interest on reversed ITC. The Court reiterated that this liberty was granted upon hearing learned counsel for the parties at the request of Respondent No. 5, who had claimed to have paid interest on the ITC that had to be reversed due to the error in filing the GSTR-1 in March 2019. The Court explicitly stated that it had not made any comments on the merit of such a claim by Respondent No. 5. The CMP was disposed of with this limited modification.

Facts

This matter concerns a Civil Miscellaneous Petition (CMP) filed by M/s Mahalaxmi Infra Contract Ltd. (the petitioner) seeking modification of a previous judgment dated October 18, 2022, passed in W.P.(T) No. 2478 of 2021. The petitioner sought two modifications: first, to allow corrections in their GSTR-1 Form for January 2019, either online or manually if technical difficulties arose, and second, to modify an observation regarding Respondent No. 5 (Eastern Coalfields Limited) claiming interest on Input Tax Credit (ITC) reversal due to errors in GSTR-1 filing in March 2019. The State Tax Officer initially suggested the petitioner might not need to route portal access requests through them, but the Court, considering the petitioner's assessment jurisdiction and prior procedural steps, deemed it appropriate for requests to be made through the jurisdictional State Tax Officer (Respondent No. 3).

Key Issues

1. Whether the petitioner should be permitted to make corrections in their GSTR-1 Form for January 2019, either online or manually, and through which authority such requests should be routed. The petitioner argued that the GSTN portal should be opened for corrections, and if technical difficulties exist, manual correction should be allowed. They also submitted that requests for portal opening should be routed through the jurisdictional State Tax Officer. The State Tax Officer initially indicated that routing through them might not be necessary due to a specific direction to GSTN, but later agreed that routing through the jurisdictional officer would facilitate the process. 2. Whether the observation in the previous judgment allowing Respondent No. 5 to claim interest over the ITC, which it had to reverse owing to an error in filing of GSTR-1 in March 2019, requires modification. The petitioner sought modification of this observation. The Court noted that this liberty was granted upon hearing both parties, at the request of Respondent No. 5, who claimed to have paid interest on reversed ITC, and the Court made no comments on the validity of such a claim.