GST enters 10th year. GST Officials to pass orders in future which are sustained at all levels.

It is a rare coincidence that GST law enters the 10th year on 01/07/2026 on which day the GSTAT benches are also likely to commence hearing. It was really a welcome move to introduce GST on 01/07/2017 which has travelled (so not smoothly) nine years in India.

Despite the fact that ITAT, NCLT as well as CESTAT are all flooded with cases day in and day out, the GSTAT should have been made operational at least during 2020 itself so that so many writs might not have reached the high courts. As whatever has already happened was during the initial periods where state tax officials were only well versed with VAT laws whereas GST is a combination of Excise, Service tax as well as VAT, there were lot of issues.

Even after setting up of the required number of benches all over India, writs are still being entertained which may see a sharp drop once effective hearings start at all the benches of GSTAT. As on date, every day we see some order by some high court where the adjudication order as well as first appeal order are set aside or even quashed. Unfortunately, authorities at the level of Additional Commissioners and above at State level and Commissioners and above at Centre level are not sensitized to this issue. When an order passed by a learned adjudicating authority is set aside by the jurisdictional high court and reported in public, it gives a message to all who read such orders that the officer has erred in passing the correct order. Things can-not continue to be so as it was happening during first leg of journey any more. Hence, this article is dedicated to few issues based on which the orders were set aside or quashed so as to help all tax officials to pass correct orders as they are quasi-judicial authorities.

We can easily come across orders passed by almost all high courts in India which set aside the OIO due to non- effective serving the show cause notice, which is just the step one. Similarly single show cause notice for multiple financial years is impermissible but still continued to be issued in audit cases. The next issue is violation of principles of natural justice which is against the provisions of section 75 (4). There are one or two officers who is not aware of the accurate applicability of sections 73,74 as well as 74A. Even section 75 (7) is violated in several cases wherein the amount demanded in adjudication order exceeds the one proposed in the show cause notice. All these speak on the poor quality of the adjudication orders which must be tackled appropriately in adjudication stage itself by the dealing tax professionals.

In order to achieve the above objectives, a list of case laws wherein the OIO was either set aside or quashed are furnished in the following table to help tax professionals to quote and for tax officials to follow the binding nature. It is expected that this message reaches many accordingly the orders being passed by the adjudication officers are sustained even when challenged before the High Court or Supreme Court.

The idea is to spread the message that the time has definitely come wherein it is the need of the hour that there is an urgent need to pass qualitative orders so as to avoid any avoidable criticism by the higher authority at a later date. The high courts are handling writs only in exceptional cases and not as a matter of routine whereas the number of appeals that are likely to reach the GSTAT during July 2026 is expected to be in lakhs.

The above cases quoted are only illustrative and there are at least 100 cases on each such issues in taxpayer favor and there are several such issues. As this is the most appropriate time for the tax professionals also to gear up and quote the GSTAT decisions at the stage of reply to show cause notice itself, this series shall continue with more case laws on issues which are settled at High Courts.