GSTR-1 Return wrongly filed

[THYAGARAJAN KALYANASUNDARAM]

Dear Experts,

One of my clients who filed GSTR-1 during the financial year 2017-18, effected ship-to-bill to concept u/s 10(1)(b) of IGST Act, while preparing the invoice he has mentioned the parties details i.e buyer and consignee interchangeably, accordingly he has filed the return wrongly. Later, when he came to know this mistake, he has immediately revised the invoices correctly. However, this was not corrected in the GSTR-1. In September 2019 his customer has issued a legal notice that he did not get the credit in their GSTR-2A and also they have received notice from the GST department for wrong availment of ITC in GSTR-3B. By the time, the opportunity given by the government for revising the GSTR-1 got expired.

Accorndingly, I have filed WRIT petition in the High Court to direct the authority to accept the revised return through online or manually. Based on the direction of the court (i.e. pass order after the opportunity of being heard) , the authority has issued the personal hearing notice to the concerned petitioner to submit the records. My client also appeared before the authority and showed that this is the wrong bill raised but subsequently the invoices were corrected. However, all the taxes to the government was discharged while filing the return. While hearing the authority, who heard the case was not consider the corrected invoices and with the support of the wrong invoices, he has passed the order and said that between GSTR-1 and Invoices are found in order. No correction is required. Hence, the petitioner prayer has been rejected.

Still, this case is pending with High Court, counter from the respondent has not been filed so far.

What is the course of action to be taken? Please advise me on this.

Thanks in advance.

AI Summary

Input Tax Credit eligibility rests on books of account; portal or GSTR-2A errors should not defeat entitlement.
A supplier filed GSTR-1 with buyer and consignee details interchanged, later corrected invoices but missed the statutory revision window; the tax authority upheld the original GSTR-1 despite corrected records. Practical steps recommended include obtaining a CA certificate or recipient declaration that ITC was not claimed, replying to departmental notices about ITC discrepancies, and relying on books of account as primary evidence while treating GSTR-2A as only facilitative for Input Tax Credit eligibility.