Advance ruling fee compliance governs maintainability; incomplete GST fee payment justified rejection of the application.

An advance ruling application under the GST enactments must be filed with the prescribed fee under each applicable tax head, and the rules required Rs. 5,000 under the Central GST head and Rs. 5,000 under the Himachal Pradesh GST head. Because the application was not accompanied by the required aggregate fee, the Authority treated it as not maintainable and rejected it for non-compliance. The advance ruling provisions therefore permit rejection where the prescribed fee is not paid in full, after hearing the applicant.

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Issues: Whether an application for advance ruling was liable to be rejected for non-payment of the prescribed fee under the GST enactments.

Analysis: The application for advance ruling was required to be accompanied by the prescribed fee under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and the Himachal Pradesh Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The applicable fee was Rs. 5,000 under each tax head, as provided in the relevant rules. The application was not accompanied by the requisite aggregate fee of Rs. 10,000, and section 98(2) empowered the Authority to reject the application after hearing the applicant.

Conclusion: The application was correctly rejected for want of the prescribed fee.

Ratio Decidendi: An advance ruling application is not maintainable unless it is accompanied by the prescribed fee for each applicable GST head, and non-compliance permits rejection under the advance ruling provisions.

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