Statutory personal hearing requirement breached: adverse GST adjudication quashed and remanded for fresh decision after proper hearing.

Where the statute mandates three opportunities of personal hearing before adverse adjudication, the adjudicating authority must strictly comply with that requirement. The taxpayer's earlier statement in the reply declining a hearing could not override the statutory command, and once the reply was not accepted the authority remained bound to afford the further hearings required by law. Failure to do so amounted to breach of natural justice and audi alteram partem. The impugned adjudication order was therefore quashed, and the matter was remanded for fresh decision-making after granting adequate opportunity of hearing.

---

---

Issues: Whether the impugned adjudication order was liable to be quashed for failure to grant the statutory opportunity of personal hearing mandated by Section 75(4) of the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Analysis: The statutory scheme required the authority to afford three opportunities of personal hearing before passing an adverse order. The record showed that the petitioner was not granted the full hearing mandated by law, and the option of declining personal hearing in the reply could not override the statutory command. Where the reply was not accepted, the authority was bound to provide the further hearings contemplated by the provision. The denial of the mandated hearing amounted to a breach of the principles of natural justice and audi alteram partem.

Conclusion: The impugned order could not stand and was liable to be quashed. The matter was required to be remanded for fresh adjudication after granting adequate opportunity of hearing, in accordance with law.

Final Conclusion: The proceedings were set aside for breach of the statutory hearing requirement and natural justice, with a direction for fresh decision-making by the adjudicating authority.

Ratio Decidendi: When a statute mandates multiple opportunities of personal hearing before an adverse adjudication, the authority must strictly comply with that mandate, and an order passed without such compliance is vitiated for breach of natural justice.

---