GSTAT Appeal filing. Do we have only thousands of appeal in pipeline?.

Finally, the GSTAT e filing portal is working as well as new e appeals before GSTAT are being filed regularly. However, the speed at which appeals are being filed and the number of appeals in pipeline as well as the deadline date of 30/06/2026 do not meet the requirements. The available data on number of e appeals filed till the specified date and till the specified date of that month are tabled below for ready reference of all concerned.

The dates are random and statistics are at the time of view of that portal.

The statistics have lot of information for all concerned. The Honorable President of GSTAT gave a public address at Chennai in a program organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India on 09/05/2026. During his address the president informed the professionals that GSTAT Portal is ready to accept e appeal and the taxpayers/ tax professionals were advised to file e appeal as quickly as possible.

There is definitely a good progress in number of e appeal filed during last one week as compared with the past. The moot question is not when the appeal is to be filed as the deadline stands as on date as 30/06/2026 for all old cases but the question is how we are going to file approximately four lakhs appeals in just 40 days from now onwards. We have not even crossed the magic five digit 10,000 as on 20/05/2026 at 13.45 hours and when are we reaching 100000 as well as 400000?.

The above data reveals the fact that there are each and every possibility on slow speed of the server, system glitches, system capacity as well as lack of awareness amongst all concerned. Either these issues must be addressed immediately on war footing or GST Council must come forward voluntarily to convene the 57th GST Council meeting before 30/06/2026 and extend the present deadline from 30/06/2026 to 31/12/2026.

The law is very clear as seen from section 112 (1) of the CGST Act which reads as 'or the date, as may be notified by the Government, on the recommendations of the Council for filing appeal before the Appellate Tribunal under this Act, whichever is later'.

The 56th council on 03/09/2025 recommended the extension of due date till 30/06/2026 for old cases which was duly notified by ministry on 17/09/2025. Thus it is established that only the GST Council has the power to extend this deadline date of 30/06/2026 and as on date there is no guarantee that this will happen as there are several uncertainties. The member from respective states have changed in respect of four states and one union territory during May 2026. The meeting to be convened with due notice as well as crystal clear agenda etc.

As per the unconfirmed data as well as the cases decided at first appeal level during the period from 01/07/2017 till 31/03/2026, there are a minimum of approximately 4 lakhs appeals in the pipeline for which the deadline stands as 30/06/2026 as of now.

All taxpayers as well as tax professionals are advised to immediately focus on filing of the second appeal through e filing wherever the same are required. The Government has on their part already set up the required number of benches as well as circuit benches in requirement with the possible cases likely to reach GSTAT whereas the cases are reaching in a very slow speed.

The current trend of e filing stands as 156 per day whereas the requirement is at more than 5000 appeals per day till 30/06/2026. Let us wait for another week to observe the developments in this regard.