Calcutta High Court Cancels GST Order Over Violation of Mandatory Hearing Requirement U/S 75(4)
Before passing any tax or penalty order against a taxpayer, the tax officer is required to give a fair opportunity of hearing to that taxpayer under section 75(4) of the CGST Act. But what if a tax officer does not comply with this section? The Calcutta High Court has delivered an important judgement in a case involving the same issue. Read below to understand what happened in this case.
The applicant, Annu Projects Private Limited, received a Show Cause Notice dated 15.12.2023, on the GST portal under the tab “Additional notices and orders“. Additionally, the adjudication order 24.04.2024 was also uploaded on the GST portal. Due to this, the petitioner was unaware of the show cause notice and the order and could not participate in the proceedings. The petitioner claimed that no opportunity of hearing was given as required under Section 75(4) of the GST Act before passing the adjudication order. The petitioner also filed an appeal before the appellate authority on 22.01.2025, which rejected their appeal due to a delay in filing. Therefore, the petitioner approached the Calcutta High Court challenging the order passed by the appellate authority and the adjudication order.
The Hon’ble Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury observed that there was a marginal delay in filing the appeal before the appellate authority and that the petitioner was not given a proper opportunity of hearing under Section 75(4). Accordingly, the High Court Set aside the original adjudication order dated 24.04.2024 and Set aside the appellate order dated 22.01.2025 and sent the matter to the adjudicating authority for a fresh consideration.
The court allowed the petitioner to file a reply to the show cause notice dated 15.12.2023 within two weeks and directed that the pre-deposit made by the petitioner should be retained to the credit of the proceedings.