What is the power of High Court in intervening with the order where there is already an alternate remedy available to the petitioner?

alternate remedy available

Case Title

M/s Aishra Technofab Engineers vs Union of India and Ors

Court

Patna High Court

Honorable Judges

Justice S. Kumar

Citation

2022 (3) GSTPanacea 264 HC Patna

Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.3212 of 2022

Judgement Date

07-March-2022

Council for Petitioner

Mr. Anurag Saurav

Council for Respondent

Mr. Krishna Nandan Singh and Anshuman Singh and Vikash Kumar

In Favor Of

Petitioner

Section

75 of the CGST Act,2017 with respect to the principle of natural justice

The Patna High Court,Bench of Justice S. Kumar, that we quash and set aside the impugned order passed by the Respondent and the Assessing Authority shall decide the case on merits after complying with the principles of natural justice.

alternate remedy available

FACTS OF THE CASE

In the given case the petitioner had an input tax credit, however when the petitioner claimed the same the same was rejected by the GST Authorities and imposed tax including penalty under Section 73 (9) of the CGST Act,2017. Therefore this Writ Petition to set aside such order. The Revenue, states that he has no objection if the matter is remanded to the Assessing Authority for deciding the case afresh.

alternate remedy available

COURT HELD

After seeing the material on record the court held that notwithstanding the statutory remedy, is not precluded from interfering where, ex facie, we form an opinion that the order is bad in law. For two reasons: (a) violation of principles of natural justice, i.e. Fair opportunity of hearing. No sufficient time was afforded to the petitioner to represent his case and (b) order passed unreasoned and cryptic in nature, does not assign any sufficient reasons even decipherable from the record, as to how the officer could determine the amount due and payable by the assessee.The order is unreasonable.

The Court then held that order passed by the revenue shall be quashed and set aside and fresh proceeding with respect to the matter shall be tired again with assessing authority and The Assessing Authority shall decide the case on merits expeditiously.

alternate remedy available

ANALYSIS OF THE JUDGEMENT

From the above case we can conclude that two important thing which should be considered by the revenue while passing the demand order against the petitioner shall be

 (a) whether principle of natural justice that is fair opportunity of hearing has been provided to the concerned person and sufficient time has been provided to the person to present his case.

(b) the demand order shall state the correct reasons on arriving at the amount of penalty tax and interest.

And if the petitioner has another remedy available under GST Authorities but the petitioner has preferred an writ petition with High Court, the Court can still intervene and quash aside the order if the order is bad in law.

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M/s Aishra Technofab Engineers

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Patna High Court