Taxpayer Granted Permission to Claim Transitional Credit in GSTR-3B After Technical Issues Prevented TRAN-1 Filing

The HC allowed the petitioner to claim transitional tax credit in GSTR-3B form for February 2022 after they were unable to file GST TRAN-1 due to technical problems on the GST portal. Following precedent from the Appeal Court, the court granted relief while preserving the Assessing Officer's right to verify the genuineness of the claims. The court specified that this relief was applicable only to the petitioner and disposed of the writ petition accordingly.

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Issues involved:
- Filing of declaration in form GST TRAN-1 for transitional credit
- Technical problem in uploading data on GST portal
- Claiming individual tax credit in GSTR-3B Forms
- Verification of genuineness of claims by Assessing Officer

Analysis:

The writ petition involved a prayer for relief/direction to allow filing of declaration in form GST TRAN-1 for the petitioner to claim transitional credit of various taxes under Section 140 of the West Bengal Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, and Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The petitioner stated that they could not avail the credit due to technical issues in uploading data on the GST portal.

The judgment referred to a previous ruling by the Appeal Court in a similar matter, where liberty was granted to the assessee to claim individual tax credit in GSTR-3B Forms for specific months. Following this precedent, the petitioner was allowed to file individual transitional tax credit in GSTR-3B Forms for the upcoming months, with the Assessing Officer having the liberty to verify the genuineness of such claims.

Given that the return for January 2022 had already been filed, the petitioner was permitted to claim the transitional tax credit in the return for February 2022. The Assessing Officer would then verify the genuineness of the claim. The judgment clarified that this benefit applied only to the petitioner, and the writ petition was disposed of accordingly.

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