GST refund limitation must exclude the COVID-19 period, making a rectified refund application timely under the statutory computation rule.

A GST refund application was held not to be barred by limitation because the statutory COVID-19 exclusion period had to be applied when computing time. The refund claim had originally been filed within time, and later deficiency memos led to a rectified resubmission; the rejection treated that later filing as time-barred. The Court held that the notified exclusion from 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2022 must be given effect for GST refund limitation, so the application could not be regarded as belated. The rejection order was interfered with and the matter was remanded for reconsideration in accordance with law.

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Issues: Whether the refund application under the GST enactments was barred by limitation, in view of the exclusion of the COVID-19 period and the treatment of a rectified refund application filed after deficiency memo.

Analysis: The refund claim had originally been filed within time, but subsequent deficiency memos led to resubmission of the application. The rejection was founded on limitation by treating the later rectified filing as time-barred. The Court noted that the statutory exclusion notified for the period from 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2022 had to be given effect while computing limitation for refund claims under the GST refund provisions. On that basis, the refund application could not be treated as filed beyond limitation. The Court therefore interfered with the rejection order and sent the matter back for reconsideration in accordance with law.

Conclusion: The limitation objection was not sustainable, and the refund rejection was set aside in favour of the petitioner.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statutory notification excludes a specified period from computation of limitation for GST refund claims, that exclusion must be applied to determine the timeliness of the refund application.

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