GSTAT PROCEDURE RULES – PART 2

Central Government has notified the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 2025(in short, GSTAT Procedure Rules). These shall come into force w.e.f. 24.04.2025, i.e., date of publication in Official Gazette.

Following is the summary of some of the Rules:

Rejection or amendment of Form of appeal at GSTAT (Rule 32)

• The Registrar may, in its discretion, on sufficient cause being shown, accept a Form of Appeal which is not accompanied by the documents referred to in rule 21 or is in any other way defective, and in such cases may require the appellant to file such documents or as the case may be, make necessary amendments within such time as it may allow, which may in any case not exceed thirty days.
• The Registrar may reject the Form of Appeal, if the documents referred to therein are not produced, or the amendments are not made, within the time-limit allowed.
• The President may in his discretion, authorise any officer of the Appellate Tribunal to:
  • return any Form of appeal, application or documents filed manually and which is/are not in accordance with these Rules; and
  • allow the documents to be re-filed after removal of the defects in the specified time.
• On representation, the Bench concerned may in its discretion either accept the Form of Appeal in terms of above rules but the appeal or application may not be restored to its original number unless the Bench allows it to be so restored on sufficient cause being shown.

Service of Notices and Communication at GSTAT (Rule 40)

• Any notice or communication to be issued by the Appellate Tribunal may be served by any of the method specified in section 169 of the CGST Act, 2017.

Explanation- For the purpose of this rule, the common Portal referred in the said section shall mean the GSTAT Portal.

• Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-rule(1) and sub-rule(2), the Appellate Tribunal may after taking into account the number of respondents and their place of residence or work or service are so many that they could not be effected in any manner and other circumstances, direct that notice of the petition or application shall be served upon the respondents in any other manner, including any manner of substituted service, as it appears to the Appellate Tribunal just and convenient.
• A notice or process may also be served on an authorised representative of the applicant or the respondent, as the case may be, in any proceeding or on any person authorised to accept a notice or a process, and such service on the authorised representative shall be deemed to be a proper service.

Preparation and publication of daily cause list at GSTAT (Rule 38)

• The Registrar shall prepare and publish the cause list for the next working day, which shall include all the information as specified in GSTAT CDR-01, on the notice board of the Appellate Tribunal and GSTAT Portal before the closing of working hours on each working day.
• Subject to the directions of the President, listing of cases in the daily cause list shall be in the following order of priority, unless otherwise ordered by the concerned Bench, namely: –

      (a) cases for pronouncement of orders;

      (b) cases for clarification;

      (c) cases for admission;

      (d) cases for orders or directions;

      (e) part-heard cases, latest part-heard having precedence; and

      (f) cases posted as per numerical order or as directed by the Bench.

• The Registrar shall communicate to the parties the date and place of hearing of the appeal or application.
• The title of the daily cause list shall consist of the number of the appeal, the day, date and time of the sitting Bench Hall number and the coram indicating the names of the Judicial members and Technical Members constituting the Bench.
• Against the number of each case listed in the daily cause list, the following shall be shown, namely: –

1. names of the legal practitioners or authorised representative appearing for both sides and setting out in brackets the designation of the parties whom they represent.
2. names of the parties, if unrepresented, with their ranks in brackets.

Authorized Representative (Rule 72 to 77)

• GSTAT (Procedure) Rules, 2025 contains rules for Authorized Representative (AR) in Rule 2(d) and 72 to 77 of these rules.
• AR is a person who is appointed by:

• Central Government, or
• States Government, or
• Officer duly authorized

to appear / plead / act  for the Commissioner, or

• Authorized in writing through vakalatnama duly stamped to appear / plead / act on behalf of such person

• AR must file vakalatnama / Memorandum of Appearance / Letter of Authorization with information as per Form GSTAT Form -04
• In case of change of AR, written consent of erstwhile AR is necessary
• GSTAT may restrict the party to appear before it if the AR has been appointed
• GSTAT may prepare a panel of special AR’s / experts to assist it
• AR shall not appear before GSTAT for any person whose interest is opposed to that of his former client except with the GSTAT’s permission.
• AR shall wear the professional dress as prescribed in their code of conduct

(To be continued…..)