The Calcutta High Court ruled that the GST department would not seize the vehicle in the absence of a second e-way bill since the first GST e-way bill was valid in the period of interception.
A bench of Justice T. S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya was acknowledging an appeal by the department questioning the single bench decision of the same Court in which the proceedings with respect to the taxpayer, Ashok Kumar Sureka, a Proprietor, were cancelled.
Before that, the taxpayer opposed the vehicle seizure including the goods and the tax demand and the penalty not needed to be explained on the basis that the e-way bill that was carried in the vehicle transporting the goods would get expired on the midnight of the 8th September 2019 and the goods were being transported on 9th September 2019 and the vehicle was intercepted at 1.30 p.m.(noon) and as per the writ applicant the vehicle transporting the goods has broken and from this reason, there was a delay and the assessee has no purpose to evade the tax payment. The single judge after seeing these facts said that the respondent /writ petitioner will be qualified for a refund of penalty and tax furnished on the protest as per the provision of all the legal formalities.
Agreeing with the order of the single judge, the high court ruled that in the instant case, the bona fides of the writ petitioner needed to be tested on the documents, which were present on the record. At first, we see that the tax invoice needs to be raised by Bhaskar Steel and Ferro Alloy Pvt. Ltd. dated 7th September 2019.
The writ petitioner’s case was that they are the traders and supplied orders from Om Dayal Educational and Research Society, which has its registered office in Kolkata. But the goods need to be transferred to a place in Durgapur. Hence the writ petitioner asked for a second GST e–way bill dated 7th Sept 2019 and since the distance from SRMB Srijan Pvt. Ltd., Durgapur to the Delhi Public School, Durgapur was only 9 kilometres, the e-way bill was valid only for one day, that is 7th September 2019 to 8th September 2019 (midnight).
At closure, the court also specified that we do not move toward the dispute as to whether there was a breakdown of the vehicle and others. The case needs to be asked by acknowledging the bonafide of the transactions as to whether the case warrants seizure of the goods and the tax and penalty collection. The first e-way bill under GST on 7th Sept 2019 was valid up to 9th September 2019., the tax authorities at Durgapur could not seize the vehicle because the second e-way bill was not available. Hence the elaboration was given by the respondent/writ petitioner was an acceptable elaboration and a case shall not be created that there was a deliberate and wilful try on the portion of the respondent/writ petitioner to evade tax payment so as to explain invocation of the power beneath Section 129 of the Act.
