GST officer passed demand order on the same day, when he issued show cause notice calling upon the petitioner for explanation: Order quashed by High Court

Court quashed the order on the ground that petitioner was not afforded reasonable opportunity of presenting his case.

Facts

The petitioner is a registered dealer and placed some orders to the Kolkata based company for providing certain goods. When the goods were in transport from Kolkata, the vehicle carrying the goods was intercepted and inspected at Churaibari check post. The Taxing Authority found that there were discrepancies and omissions in the E-way bill that the driver of the vehicle was carrying at the time of inspection.

On 06.11.2018 the Inspector of Taxes issued a notice to the petitioner under the GST Acts and raised the tentative demand of GST and IGST tax with penalty. He called upon the petitioner to appear before him on 23.11.2018. Curiously, however, on the same date i.e. 06.11.2018 he passed the separate order raising a demand of ₹ 32,280/- against the petitioner. He passed yet another order also of 06.11.2018 confirming the demand of GST with penalty in terms of Section 129(3) of the CGST Act. These orders the petitioner has challenged in the present petition.

High Court

In plain terms the order passed by the said authority suffers from grossest possible violation of principles of natural justice. Having issued notice calling upon the petitioner why certain demand of tax with penalty not be confirmed, he passed the final order confirming the demand on the same date as the notice and long before the time he had granted the petitioner to respond to the notice. We may recall the show-cause notice was issued on 06.11.2018 which required the petitioner to appear before the said authority on 23.11.2018. Without permitting the petitioner to appear and file reply and oppose the demands the Inspector confirmed the demand by passing separate orders on 06.11.2018. This was wholly impermissible. These orders are, therefore, quashed. However, it would be open for the competent authority to pass a fresh order after allowing the petitioner to file reply to the show-cause notice. 

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