A division bench of the Rajasthan High Court constituting the Acting Chief Justice Mr. Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Mr. Justice Sameer Jain has denied granting exemption to the taxpayer through personal appearance beneath the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.
The applicant, Suresh Balkrishna Jajra asked the High court for an exemption from personal appearance according to the summons provided to the applicant beneath Section 70 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.
The applicant specified that he is qualified to be represented via his representative under Section 116 of the Act of 2017 is not acceptable in law as the provisions beneath Section 116 of the Act of 2017 does not be applicable when an individual is needed beneath the act to appear personally for examination on oath or affirmation. The applicant depends on the FAQs allocated in support of his argument.
The bench sees that “FAQs do not provide that such kind of request for representation through legal representative would be permissible even in those cases which are not covered under Section 116 of the Act of 2017, that too by way of administrative instructions, as that would be against the provisions of law.”
“Court also mentioned that Before parting with the case, this Court, taking note of the directions issued by Their Lordships in the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Paramvir Singh Saini Vs. Baljit Singh & Others (2021) 1 SCC 184, would observe that even in the matter of issuance of summons under Section 70 of the Act of 2017 for personal appearance and recording of statement, certain procedure has to be followed as stated therein. All such procedure as laid down therein will have to be followed by the respondents while recording the statement of the petitioner pursuant to summons issued under Section 70 of the Act of 2017,”
