Effective service of GST notice and opportunity to respond required; assessment set aside and remitted for fresh adjudication.

Effective service of a GST show cause notice is required before adjudication, and a notice placed only under the portal's "Additional Notices and Orders" tab was treated as not having adequately come to the taxpayer's attention. Because the taxpayer was unable to file a reply, the Court held that denial of a proper opportunity to respond warranted setting aside the assessment and appellate orders. The matter was remitted for fresh adjudication after permitting a reply and granting personal hearing.

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Issues: Whether the assessment and appellate orders were liable to be set aside for want of effective service of the show cause notice and denial of an opportunity to respond, where the notice was uploaded under the "Additional Notices and Orders" tab on the GST portal.

Analysis: The petitioner showed that the show cause notice was not effectively brought to its attention because it was hosted under the portal's "Additional Notices and Orders" category. The Court accepted that the petitioner had thereby missed the notice and could not file a response. In the circumstances, and having regard to the requirement of a proper opportunity before adjudication, the Court held that one further opportunity should be granted and the matter should be re-adjudicated after hearing the petitioner.

Conclusion: The impugned assessment and appellate orders were set aside and the matter was remitted for fresh adjudication after enabling the petitioner to file a reply and after affording personal hearing.

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