Plea raised in response to the GST show cause notice, whether good, bad or indifferent, was required to be dealt with by the authority – High Court
In a recent judgment, Hon’ble Allahabad High Court has quashed order passed u/s 73 of the UPGST Act holding that plea / objections raised in response to the show cause notice, whether good, bad or indifferent, was required to be dealt with by the authority.
ABCAUS Case Law Citation:
4463 (2025) (03) abcaus.in HC
In The instant case, the assessee/Petitioner had filed a writ petition challenging demand notice / order issued under Section 73 of the Uttar Pradesh Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (‘the Act’).
A notice under Section 61 of the Act was issued to the petitioner, to which no reply was filed. Whereafter, when notice under Section 73 was issued to the petitioner. The Petitioner filed a reply to the said notice alongwith certain documents. However, no opportunity of hearing was provided by the GST Authority and the order impugned was passed.
The Petitioner contended that a bare look at the order impugned reveals that none of the issues as raised in the response to the show cause notice had been taken into consideration and a standard statement had been indicated in the order that no evidence had been produced, whereas the reply itself was exhaustive and was supported by documents and, therefore, it was prayed that the order impugned deserved to be quashed and set aside on that count alone.
On the other hand the respondent Department submitted that the concerned GST authority had taken into consideration the plea sought to be raised while passing the order impugned and in view of the exhaustive show cause notice which was issued, to which a very cursory reply was filed, the order impugned had been appropriately passed and, therefore, the petition deserved dismissal.
The Hon’ble High Court observed that a bare look at the response filed by the petitioner showed that specific plea pertaining to the issues raised in the show cause notice were taken alongwith certain documents.
The Hon’ble High Court further observed that irrespective of the whether the plea raised by the assessee had any substance or not or the documents annexed were relevant or not, not a word had been indicated in the order impugned by the authority except for the standard statement regarding non producing any material.
The Hon’ble High Court opined that the plea raised in the reply in response to the show cause notice, whether good, bad or indifferent, was required to be dealt with by the authority. Non mention even of the plea raised by the petitioner, apparently reflects non application of mind to the reply as filed, as the application of mind must be reflected from the order passed. Consequently, the Hon’ble High Court held that the order passed, cannot be sustained.
In result, the petition was allowed and the impugned order was quashed and set aside with direction to the respondent authority to fix a date for hearing of the matter and provide personal hearing to the petitioner and pass a fresh order in accordance with law.
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