Detention under Section 129 requires statutory adjudication, not writ review, where factual issues need hearing and decision.

Detention disputes under Section 129 of the CGST Act and the corresponding Kerala SGST provision were held unsuitable for determination in Article 226 proceedings where the petitioner's factual contentions and document sufficiency required statutory adjudication. The High Court therefore declined to decide the merits of detention in writ jurisdiction and left the matter to the competent authority. The authority was directed to complete the adjudication after giving the petitioner an opportunity of hearing within the time fixed by the Court.

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Issues: Whether the detention dispute arising under Section 129 could be adjudicated in writ jurisdiction and whether the proper course was to direct completion of the statutory adjudication after hearing the petitioner.

Analysis: The Court held that the correctness of the petitioner's contentions regarding detention and the sufficiency of the documents could not be decided in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Since Section 129 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and Section 129 of the Kerala State Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 provided for adjudication, the matter was left to the statutory authority. The authority was directed to complete the adjudication after affording an opportunity of hearing within the time fixed by the Court.

Conclusion: The writ petition was disposed of by relegating the petitioner to the statutory adjudication under Section 129, with a direction to the first respondent to decide the matter after hearing the petitioner.

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