Strict compliance with prescribed form and fee is mandatory for advance ruling applications; non-compliance makes them non-maintainable.

An advance ruling application must strictly comply with the prescribed procedural requirements, including filing in FORM GST ARA-01 and payment of the full prescribed fee under the GST rules. Where the application is not filed in the proper form and the complete fee is not paid, it fails to satisfy the statutory conditions for maintainability. The application is therefore liable to rejection as non-maintainable, and the authority cannot examine the request on merits until those threshold requirements are met.

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Issues: Whether the advance ruling application was maintainable when it was not filed in the prescribed form and the full prescribed fee was not paid.

Analysis: The application for advance ruling was required to be filed in FORM GST ARA-01 under Section 97(1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 read with Rule 104 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017, and the corresponding provisions under the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017. The prescribed fee was Rs. 5,000 under each tax head, and the combined fee payable was Rs. 10,000. As the application was neither filed in the prescribed form nor accompanied by the full fee, it did not satisfy the statutory requirements for an advance ruling application.

Conclusion: The application was non-maintainable and liable to rejection under Section 98(2) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Final Conclusion: The request for advance ruling could not be examined on merits because the threshold procedural requirements for a valid application were not fulfilled.

Ratio Decidendi: An advance ruling application must strictly comply with the prescribed form and fee requirements, failing which it is liable to be rejected as non-maintainable.

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