Issues: Whether cancellation of GST registration and the consequential appellate order could stand where the cancellation was made without reasons or application of mind and without an effective opportunity to respond.

Analysis: Cancellation of registration adversely affects the right to carry on business and must satisfy the constitutional requirement of non-arbitrariness under Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The cancellation order did not disclose reasons warranting such action and reflected no application of mind. The petitioner was consequently entitled to submit a reply to the show-cause notice and have its defence considered after an opportunity of hearing.

Conclusion: The cancellation and appellate orders were unsustainable and were set aside in favour of the assessee, with fresh adjudication to follow after receipt of the petitioner's reply and hearing.

Issues: Whether the applicant was entitled to bail for alleged fraudulent availment and passing of input tax credit and wrongful export refunds under the Central Goods and Services Tax regime.

Analysis: The alleged offences carry a maximum sentence of five years and are triable by a Magistrate. Investigation had concluded, the complaint had been filed, no charge had been framed, and the trial was unlikely to conclude within a reasonable time. The applicant had remained in custody since 13 February 2026 and had no criminal antecedents. Pre-conviction detention is not punitive; personal liberty, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a speedy trial require release unless exceptional circumstances justify continued custody. No material established a flight risk, likelihood of repetition of offences, intimidation of witnesses, or tampering with documentary and electronic evidence.

Conclusion: The applicant made out a case for release on bail upon appropriate safeguards.

Issues: Whether the accused was entitled to bail pending trial in a case alleging fraudulent availment of input tax credit and allied forgery offences.

Analysis: The period of the alleged incorrect input-tax-credit claims, the delay in lodging the FIR, the suo motu cancellation of GST registration against which an appeal remained pending, and the period of incarceration supported release on bail. The merits of the prosecution case were left untouched.

Conclusion: The accused was entitled to bail pending trial.

Issues: (i) Whether units booked after 30.06.2018 could be excluded from the anti-profiteering investigation; (ii) Whether the net profiteered amount was refundable to identified homebuyers or depositable in the Consumer Welfare Fund; (iii) Whether excess benefit passed to some buyers could be set off against liability owed to other buyers; (iv) Whether GST on the inflated base price formed part of the profiteered amount; (v) Whether interest was payable and the date from which it was to be computed; (vi) Whether penalty under Section 171(3A) was applicable.

Issue (i): Whether units booked after 30.06.2018 could be excluded from the anti-profiteering investigation.

Analysis: The ITC benefit is project-specific where construction commenced before GST and continued after its implementation. A post-GST purchaser is entitled to the ITC benefit attributable to post-GST inputs used in construction. Fresh price negotiation or maintenance of average prices, without documented evidence of a commensurate ITC reduction, does not establish that the benefit was passed on.

Conclusion: Post-GST booked units were not excludable; the finding is against the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the net profiteered amount was refundable to identified homebuyers or depositable in the Consumer Welfare Fund.

Analysis: Deposit in the Consumer Welfare Fund is a residuary measure applicable only where recipients genuinely cannot be identified. Buyer-wise project records identified the 128 eligible homebuyers, and absence of a complaint, current contact details, or transfer of project operations did not render them unidentifiable. The supplier's statutory liability to pass on the benefit survives project transfer.

Conclusion: The net profiteered amount must be returned to the identified homebuyers and cannot be deposited in the Consumer Welfare Fund; the finding is against the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether excess benefit passed to some buyers could be set off against liability owed to other buyers.

Analysis: The obligation to pass on ITC benefit is owed separately to each recipient. Excess payment to one group of customers cannot discharge the obligation owed to different customers. The statutory framework does not empower recovery of alleged excess benefit from consumers or adjustment of that excess against liabilities due to other recipients.

Conclusion: Set-off of excess benefit passed to 1039 customers against the liability to the remaining 128 customers was refused; the finding is against the assessee.

Issue (iv): Whether GST on the inflated base price formed part of the profiteered amount.

Analysis: The excess amount paid by a homebuyer includes GST charged on the inflated base price. Even if that tax was remitted to the Government, it was an additional cost borne by the buyer and must be restored to place the buyer in the position that would have prevailed had the ITC benefit been passed on.

Conclusion: Inclusion of GST at 12% in the profiteered amount was upheld; the finding is against the assessee.

Issue (v): Whether interest was payable and the date from which it was to be computed.

Analysis: Rule 133(3)(b) validly provides for interest at 18% per annum on the amount not passed on to recipients. Since the project-wide computation did not permit identification of the exact date of collection of excess amount for each square foot, the date of payment of the last instalment by each buyer was adopted as the appropriate starting point.

Conclusion: Interest at 18% per annum is payable from the respective date of the last instalment paid by each eligible homebuyer until refund; the finding is against the assessee.

Issue (vi): Whether penalty under Section 171(3A) was applicable.

Analysis: The entire contravention period ended on 30.10.2019, before Section 171(3A) came into force on 01.01.2020. A penal provision cannot be applied retrospectively to a completed period of contravention.

Conclusion: No penalty under Section 171(3A) is payable; the finding is in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The developer remained liable to return the net unpassed ITC benefit of Rs. 40,99,917 to the 128 identified homebuyers, with interest, while no penal consequence could be imposed for the pre-enforcement contravention period.

Ratio Decidendi: In a transitional real-estate project, ITC benefit must be passed on project-wise to every eligible recipient, and liability owed to one recipient cannot be neutralised by excess benefit given to another.

Issues: Whether a director may be prosecuted under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 for fraudulent availment of input tax credit by a company without arraigning the company as an accused.

Analysis: Section 137 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 is pari materia with Section 141 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. The statutory phrase making persons in charge liable "as well as the company" makes commission of the offence by, and prosecution of, the company a condition precedent for fastening vicarious criminal liability on its director. The alleged wrongful availment of input tax credit was by the company, which alone was the registered person entitled to take input tax credit under Section 16, while the director's alleged role arose solely from his position in the company. The company had not been arraigned in the complaint.

Conclusion: Prosecution of the director in his personal capacity without arraigning the company is not maintainable; the criminal complaint and consequential proceedings cannot continue against him.

Issues: Whether the dismissal of the statutory appeal as time-barred warranted setting aside and fresh adjudication on merits.

Analysis: Section 107 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 prescribes the appeal limitation period and permits condonation only within the statutorily fixed outer limit. The appellate order was pronounced on 26.02.2026, communicated with the letter dated 10.03.2026, and uploaded on the departmental website on 17.04.2026. The appeal required fresh determination on merits rather than dismissal on limitation.

Conclusion: The appellate order dismissing the appeal as barred by limitation was set aside, and the appeal was remitted for decision afresh on merits.

Issues: Whether the writ petition raising a pure jurisdictional challenge to the competence of the State GST investigation officer to issue the show-cause notice and adjudicate could be entertained despite the available statutory appellate remedy.

Analysis: Availability of an efficacious alternative remedy ordinarily restrains exercise of writ jurisdiction, particularly where appellate forums are functional. However, a writ petition may be entertained where the challenged proceedings are alleged to be wholly without jurisdiction and the objection is a pure question of law not requiring determination of disputed facts. The challenge to the adjudicating authority's competence, including whether an officer of the Bureau of Investigation possessed adjudicatory power under the GST enactments, required determination. The conflicting High Court views on cross-empowerment also reinforced the need for the jurisdictional objections to be considered. An adjudicating authority may rule on its own jurisdiction.

Conclusion: The writ petition was maintainable notwithstanding the alternative appellate remedy, and the jurisdictional objections must be decided first by the adjudicating authority before fresh adjudication on the remaining issues.

Issues: (i) Whether CGST authorities could invoke Section 74(1) to deny transitional credit on the basis that CENVAT credit validly carried in pre-GST returns was inadmissible under the erstwhile regime; (ii) Whether Krishi Kalyan Cess credit transitioned under Section 140(1) was admissible; (iii) Whether VAT credit on stock-in-trade transitioned under Section 140(6) could be denied without contrary material or specific findings.

Issue (i): Whether CGST authorities could invoke Section 74(1) to deny transitional credit on the basis that CENVAT credit validly carried in pre-GST returns was inadmissible under the erstwhile regime.

Analysis: Sections 142(6)(a) and 174(2)(e) preserve proceedings and remedies under the erstwhile enactments. The credit in question stood disclosed as closing balance in the pre-GST service-tax and VAT returns and had never been disputed under those laws. Section 140 permits carry-forward subject to GST eligibility conditions, but does not empower CGST officers to reassess the correctness of credit availed under the repealed regime. Verification of closing credit against particular invoices was also untenable because the closing balance is derived from opening balance, availment and utilisation. Proceedings for alleged wrong availment under the erstwhile regime could only be initiated under the applicable erstwhile law.

Conclusion: The Section 74(1) proceedings, insofar as they reassessed the admissibility of pre-GST credit under the erstwhile laws, were without jurisdiction and were decided in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether Krishi Kalyan Cess credit transitioned under Section 140(1) was admissible.

Analysis: Explanation 3 to Section 140 could not be applied to deny cess credit under Section 140(1) in the absence of operationalisation of the linked amendments to Explanations 1 and 2. The departmental circular confirmed that those amendments would not be notified. The jurisdictional High Court ruling governing the effect of these provisions remained operative, and the pending challenge against it did not justify denial in the absence of a stay.

Conclusion: Transition of Krishi Kalyan Cess credit was valid and was decided in favour of the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether VAT credit on stock-in-trade transitioned under Section 140(6) could be denied without contrary material or specific findings.

Analysis: The required particulars for stock-in-trade VAT credit had been furnished, while the lower authorities recorded no specific defect or evidence disproving eligibility. The denial merely treated this credit as part of other disputed credits. Objections concerning invoice particulars and documents, not raised when the underlying credit was claimed, could not sustain denial at the transition stage.

Conclusion: The transitioned VAT credit on stock-in-trade was eligible and was decided in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The transitional credits were legally available, and the demand, interest and penalty founded on their denial could not survive.

Ratio Decidendi: Transitional-credit provisions do not confer jurisdiction on GST authorities to reassess the admissibility of credit validly carried forward from the erstwhile regime; such disputes must be pursued under the saved provisions of the applicable erstwhile law.

Issues: Whether the substituted proviso to Section 107(6) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, effective from 01.10.2025, requiring a ten per cent pre-deposit for appeals against penalty-only orders, applies to adjudicatory proceedings initiated by a show-cause notice before that date.

Analysis: The right of appeal is a substantive right that vests with the commencement of the lis and includes the appellate forum and conditions governing exercise of that right. A subsequently introduced pre-deposit that materially burdens access to the appellate remedy cannot apply to a vested appellate right unless the amending enactment expressly or by necessary implication so provides. The lis commenced when the show-cause notice asserted quantified personal penalty liability and required an answer; subsequent replies, hearing, adjudication order, and filing of appeal were connected stages of the same proceeding. The substituted proviso introduced, for the first time in respect of the penalty-only order concerned, a mandatory ten per cent deposit as a condition precedent to filing an appeal. Neither Section 129 of the Finance Act, 2025 nor the substituted proviso contains an express transitional command or necessary implication applying that onerous condition to proceedings initiated before its commencement. The expression "no appeal shall be filed" specifies the stage of compliance where the substituted proviso applies, but does not determine its temporal applicability to an already vested appellate right.

Conclusion: The substituted proviso to Section 107(6) does not apply to appeals arising from the pre-01.10.2025 show-cause notice; the appeals are governed by the pre-amendment appellate regime, and no ten per cent deposit of the disputed penalties is required as a condition of filing them. This is in favour of the assessee.

Issues: Whether assignment by sale and transfer of long-term leasehold rights in land and building is liable to GST.

Analysis: The assignment transfers the benefits arising from immovable property from the existing lessee to the assignee, who replaces the original lessee. Such a transaction falls outside the scope of taxable supply under Section 7(1)(a), Schedule II and Schedule III; consequently, GST under Section 9 is not attracted. The challenge was covered by the earlier binding decision, whose challenge before the Supreme Court had been dismissed.

Conclusion: Assignment of long-term leasehold rights in land and building is not liable to GST; the action under Section 73 was quashed.

Issues: (i) Whether the developer failed to pass on the additional input tax credit benefit through commensurate reduction in flat prices, and the quantum of profiteering; (ii) Whether Notification No. 19/2024-Central Tax dated 30.09.2024 rendered the pending anti-profiteering proceedings non-maintainable; (iii) Whether pendency of a challenge to the anti-profiteering provisions before the Supreme Court required the proceedings to be kept in abeyance.

Issue (i): Whether the developer failed to pass on the additional input tax credit benefit through commensurate reduction in flat prices, and the quantum of profiteering.

Analysis: Section 171(1) requires a registered person to pass on benefits arising from additional input tax credit by commensurately reducing prices. No eligible CENVAT or VAT credit was available in the pre-GST period, whereas post-GST input tax credit was available at 10.63% of the purchase value. The revised computation, based on the developer's own records, apportioned the resulting saving by saleable area and quantified the benefit attributable to purchasers. The developer neither disputed the underlying data or computation nor established that the benefit had actually been passed on.

Conclusion: The developer contravened Section 171(1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and profiteered Rs. 95,13,829 inclusive of GST. This issue is decided in favour of the Revenue and against the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether Notification No. 19/2024-Central Tax dated 30.09.2024 rendered the pending anti-profiteering proceedings non-maintainable.

Analysis: The notification prospectively prohibits acceptance of fresh requests for examination from 01.04.2025. It neither provides for abatement nor terminates investigations and adjudicatory proceedings already instituted before that date. The complaint and investigation in this matter pre-dated the notified date and could not be treated as a fresh request.

Conclusion: Notification No. 19/2024-Central Tax dated 30.09.2024 does not affect the maintainability of the pending proceedings. This issue is decided in favour of the Revenue and against the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether pendency of a challenge to the anti-profiteering provisions before the Supreme Court required the proceedings to be kept in abeyance.

Analysis: Mere pendency of a constitutional or legal challenge before a higher forum does not stay operation of the governing statute or proceedings under it. No stay of Section 171, the investigation, or these proceedings was produced, and the prevailing legal position remained binding.

Conclusion: The proceedings need not be kept in abeyance. This issue is decided in favour of the Revenue and against the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The quantified input tax credit benefit must be passed on to eligible homebuyers with prescribed interest; no penalty is attracted because the contravention period preceded the commencement of Section 171(3A).

Ratio Decidendi: A notification barring acceptance of fresh anti-profiteering requests prospectively does not abate pending proceedings, and additional input tax credit retained without commensurate price reduction constitutes profiteering under Section 171(1).

Issues: Whether delay in filing the statutory GST appeal should be condoned where the order was not effectively communicated and no personal hearing was afforded.

Analysis: Although the Appellate Authority is bound by the limitation prescribed for appeals, the delay resulted from circumstances beyond the petitioner's control. Mere uploading of the order on the GST portal did not effectively communicate it in the circumstances, and denial of personal hearing materially prejudiced the petitioner. Refusal to permit merits adjudication would cause grave injury.

Conclusion: The delay in filing the appeal was condoned in favour of the assessee, and the Appellate Authority was directed to entertain and decide the appeal on merits if filed within the stipulated period.

Issues: Vacancies in the Uttar Pradesh Benches of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal and measures for filling sanctioned posts.

Analysis: The recorded staffing details disclosed substantial vacancies across the tribunal benches. The process for filling sanctioned posts was stated to be pending approval of the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance.

Outcome: Affidavit directed from the responsible Department of Revenue officer; matter listed for further hearing and interim order continued.

Issues: Whether cancellation of GST registration without recorded reasons and without affording an opportunity of hearing was sustainable.

Analysis: Cancellation of registration is a drastic measure and the order must disclose due application of mind and reasons supporting the action. The absence of reasons in the cancellation order rendered it arbitrary and inconsistent with Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The petitioner had also not been afforded an opportunity of hearing before the adverse action.

Conclusion: The cancellation order was unsustainable for want of reasons, application of mind, and opportunity of hearing; it was set aside, with fresh adjudication to follow after receipt of the petitioner's reply and a hearing.

Issues: Challenge to provisional attachment of the petitioners' bank accounts and consideration of their request for de-freezing.

Outcome: The writ petitions were disposed of with a direction to the petitioners' authorised representatives to appear before the investigating authority on the specified date.

Issues: (i) Whether the adjudication order for financial year 2018-19 was barred by limitation under Section 73 of the Assam Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017; (ii) Whether the order complied with the requirements of hearing and reasoned determination under Section 75 of the Assam Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Issue (i): Whether the adjudication order for financial year 2018-19 was barred by limitation under Section 73 of the Assam Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Analysis: The limitation for passing an order under Section 73(9) for financial year 2018-19 expired on 31.12.2023. No pari materia State notification under Section 168A extending that period was issued for the relevant period. The order was made on 30.04.2024.

Conclusion: The adjudication order was time-barred and invalid, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the order complied with the requirements of hearing and reasoned determination under Section 75 of the Assam Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

Analysis: The order was not drawn up in the manner required by Section 75(6) and was passed without affording the assessee the hearing mandated by Section 75(4).

Conclusion: The order violated Section 75 and the requirements of natural justice, in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The tax, interest and penalty determination for financial year 2018-19 has no legal sustainability.

Ratio Decidendi: An adjudication order passed after expiry of the statutory limitation, without a valid State extension, and without the prescribed hearing and reasoned form, is invalid.

Issues: Whether the petitioners should be granted regular bail in prosecution for alleged fraudulent availment and passing of input tax credit through purportedly bogus firms.

Analysis: The prosecution case rested predominantly on electronic and documentary material already appended to the complaint. The proposed witnesses were government officers, making the risk of evidence tampering or witness influence negligible. The alleged offences carried a maximum sentence of five years; the petitioners had remained in custody for over seven months, had no criminal antecedents, and the allegations required examination at trial. Their continued custody was therefore not warranted, subject to safeguards securing their presence and protecting the investigation and trial.

Outcome: Both petitioners were granted regular bail on adequate bail and surety bonds subject to stipulated conditions.

Issues: Whether cancellation of GST registration for continuous non-filing of returns should be set aside and registration restored.

Analysis: The cancellation was founded solely on non-filing of returns, without any allegation of a dubious process to evade tax. Continued cancellation would prevent the petitioner from conducting business and raising invoices, and would consequently impair tax recovery. A pragmatic approach therefore required an opportunity to regularise the defaults through filing of returns and payment of statutory dues.

Conclusion: The cancellation of registration was set aside, conditional upon filing all defaulting returns and payment of tax, interest, fine and penalty within the stipulated period; on compliance, registration is to be restored.

Issues: Whether the applicant should be granted regular bail in a prosecution alleging fraudulent availment and passing of input tax credit.

Analysis: The investigation was completed and the final complaint had been filed. The prosecution case rested on documentary and electronic material already held by the Department, and further custodial detention was not warranted. The applicant had remained in custody since 22.01.2026 and the trial was likely to take considerable time.

Conclusion: Regular bail was granted to the applicant.