Writ petition is not admissible if an Assessee files an appeal after the limitation period and does not avail the benefit of Amnesty Scheme

The Hon’ble Patna High Court in M/s Raj Kishore Sah v. Union of India [Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 8376 of 2024 dated June 19, 2024], dismissed the writ petition challenging the cancellation of GST  registration, where the Assessee had not availed remedy of the  Amnesty scheme provided by the Government vide Notification No. 03/2023-Central Tax dated March 31, 2023 (“the Notification”) and filed the appeal after the time limit prescribed under section 107 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act  (“the CGST Act”).

Facts:

M/s Raj Kishore Sah (“the Petitioner”), was served a notice dated September 29, 2022 (“SCN”) for cancellation of the GST registration. Thereafter, an order dated October 12, 2022 (“the Impugned Order”) was passed for cancellation of the GST registration of the Petitioner. Consequently, the Petitioner filed an appeal against the Impugned Order on December 22, 2023. However, the appeal was filed after the expiry of the limitation period prescribed under Section 107(4) of the CGST Act. Moreover, the Petitioner did not avail the remedy of the Amnesty scheme to restore registration on payment of all dues between March 31, 2023 to August 31, 2023.

Hence, aggrieved by the Impugned Order, the Petitioner filed the present writ petition.

Issue:

Whether the writ petition is admissible if an Assessee files the appeal after the limitation period and did not avail the benefit of Amnesty Scheme?

Held:

The Hon’ble Patna High court in Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No. 8376 of 2024 held as under:

• Observed that, the Petitioner was not a registered dealer and there was no monitoring of activities by the department in the intervening period. Further, there was no way to ascertain whether any transactions were carried out during the period when the Petitioner’s registration was cancelled.
• Held that, an appeal must be filed within three months of the order and delay is condoned if appeal is delayed within one month of expiry of limitation. Therefore, the appeal ought to have been filed on or before January 11, 2023 or before February 10, 2023 with a delay condonation application. The Petitioner had filed a delayed appeal and had not availed remedy of the Amnesty Scheme offered by government through the Notification. Hence, the court dismissed the petition and declined to exercise its discretion in favor of the Petitioner.

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