Under Section 75(6) of the Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, an order must be self-contained, and a mere reference to earlier show cause notices is not adequate, the Allahabad High Court ruled.
Section 75 of the GST Act is a general provision pertinent to the determination of tax. Section 75(6) of the GST Act furnishes that “the proper officer, in his order, shall set out the relevant facts and the basis of his decision.”
Applicant said that notice u/s 61 (Scrutiny of returns) was issued to him. Applicant does not know about the upload of the notice on the portal and is unable to submit a response then.
Under Section 73 of the Act, a notice was furnished before the applicant showing the date of filing the reply and the date and time of the personal hearing, but the applicant did not submit a response. Thus, under Section 73(9) of the Act, the order has made an obligation of Rs 85,84,759.
Also, the applicants filed rectification application was rejected. Because the order u/s 73(9) violated Section 75(6) of the GST Act, as no reasons had been exhibited in the order, the applicant has approached the HC.
The bench of Chief Justice Arun Bhansali and Justice Kshitij Shailendra ruled that,
“The manner of passing of order dated 27.04.2024 falls foul of the requirements of Section 75(6) of the Act, which requires that ‘the proper officer, in his order shall set out the relevant facts and the basis of his decision’, the statutory requirements for passing an order by setting out relevant facts and basis for the decision are totally missing from the order dated 27.04.2024.”
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The court, the authority, must pass orders as per Section 75(6) of the GST Act, despite taxpayers’ unanswered, “as a final order should be self-contained and merely making reference to the previous notices while passing the said order does not suffice for making it a self-contained order.”
As per that, the impugned order has been set aside, and the Deputy Commissioner, State Tax, Sector-3, Sonbhadra was asked to furnish a chance of hearing to the applicant and then decide as per statute.
Case Title | M/s Hari Shanker Transport v. Commissioner of Commercial Tax U.P. Lucknow and Another |
Citation | WRIT TAX No. – 606 of 2025 |
Counsel For Appellant | Adarsh Singh, Aloke Kumar, Puneet Arun |
Counsel For Respondent | Ankur Agarwal (S.C.) |
Allahabad High Court | Read Order |