No Escape! High Court Throws Out GST Appeal Filed Beyond Deadline
The petitioner protested against an Order-in-Original dated 23 May 2023 and the appellate authority’s order dated 19 December 2023. An appeal against the Order-in-Original was made before the appellate authority on 17 October 2023, which exceeded the three-month statutory time limit and also lay beyond the additional one-month condonable period granted under Section 107(4) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The appellate authority consequently dismissed the appeal as being time-barred.
The petitioner subsequently moved the High Court under Article 226, alleging non-communication of the Order-in-Original and praying for a determination on merits. But while going through the appeal memo and the application for condonation of delay, the Court discovered that no case of non-communication had been pleaded. The reasons cited did not establish any ground to treat the appeal as within the maximum condonable period of 120 days.
Issue Raised: Whether a writ petition under Article 226 can be entertained to challenge an Order-in-Original when the statutory appeal under Section 107 of the CGST Act was filed beyond the maximum condonable period.
High Court’s Decision: The Court held that its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 cannot be exercised to override the legislative scheme contained in Section 107(1) and Section 107(4) of the CGST Act. It was observed that the petitioner had not established non-communication of the Order-in-Original and that the appeal was instituted beyond the maximum condonable period; accordingly, the statutory bar of limitation applied.
Support came in the form of precedents such as Assistant Commissioner (CT) LTU, Kakinada & Ors. v. Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Health Care Ltd., ONGC v. Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Ltd., and Abhyudaya Co-operative Bank Ltd. v. Union of India, which uniformly held that where a statute lays down a limitation period and an extended condonable period, Section 5 of the Limitation Act is not applicable. The said principles applied, the writ petition was rejected without costs.
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