Observing that the permanent cancellation of GST registration virtually inflicts a “civil death” of a business by depriving the taxpayer of their livelihood and right to trade, the Patna High Court granted statutory relief to M/s Super Enterprises. The petitioner’s registration had been revoked due to non-filing of GST returns for a continuous period of six months.
A Division Bench of Justices Rajeev Ranjan Prasad and Ramesh Chand Malviya observed that Section 75(4) of the Bihar GST Act, 2017, mandates the authorities to furnish a chance of hearing before taking an adverse decision. It said that:
“When no show cause was filed within the given period of 30 days, thereafter, a date of hearing was required to be fixed or in case of filing of the show cause, if the authorities would not have been satisfied with the plea taken in the show cause and an adverse order would have been contemplated then in that case also, a date for hearing was required to be fixed.”
Super Enterprises approached the High Court contesting the GST registration cancellation and the appellate authority’s order dismissing its appeal only based on limitation.
The taxpayer had submitted its GST returns regularly but was unable to handle its business operations because of specific situations and illness, which resulted in a 6-month delay in filing returns. Also, its consultant did not notify it about the SCN uploaded on the GST portal.
Thereafter, the authorities cancelled the registration via an ex parte order on 22 April 2024. Afterwards, Super Enterprises submitted its GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 returns and cleared the pending tax dues, including tax, fee and penalty.
The Court observed that the SCN on 6 February 2024 had given 30 days to the taxpayer to file its response but fixed the personal hearing for 5 March 2024, before the lapse of the available duration for submitting the response. It said that, in such situations, fixing the hearing date amounted to an “empty formality”.
The petition was countered by the Revenue, citing that Super Enterprises had previously obtained SCNs for cancellation of registration and had not submitted returns after June 2023. It asserted that adequate chance had been furnished and that the appeal was correctly dismissed as time-barred.
The bench placed reliance on its earlier decision in Galaxy Heights v. Union of India & Ors., and repeated that permanent GST registration cancellation might impact “civil death” on a taxpayer’s livelihood, as the person shall no longer operate business.
Consequently, the High Court set aside the impugned appellate order and directed that Super Enterprises be granted a three-week window to apply for the revocation of its GST registration cancellation before the competent adjudicating authority.
On submitting the application within the said duration, the authority would consider it on its merits and shall not deny it only on the ground of limitation. It asked the authority to determine the application within 2 months.
| Case Title | M/S Super Enterprises vs. The Union of India |
| Case No. | No.6588 of 2026 |
| For Petitioner | Mr Anurag Saurav, Mr Abhishek Dubey, Mr Sriram Krishna, and Mr Rewti Kant |
| Patna High Court | Read Order |
