Exclusion of Time Spent in Pending High Court Proceedings for Computing GSTAT Appeal Limitation

[Dipika Shetye]

Under the GST regime, an assessee filed a writ petition before the High Court challenging an order of the Appellate Authority because the GSTAT had not yet been constituted. The matter is still pending before the High Court.

Now that GSTAT has been constituted, the assessee intends to withdraw the writ petition and file an appeal before the Tribunal. However, the statutory period prescribed under Section 112 of the CGST Act for filing an appeal before GSTAT has already expired.

Can the assessee seek exclusion of the period during which the writ petition remained pending before the High Court while computing the limitation period for filing the appeal before GSTAT?

If yes where from it is coming from the law that the period of High Court will be excluded.

AI Summary

Limitation exclusion for tribunal appeals raises whether pending writ proceedings can preserve appellate filing time after tribunal constitution.
The issue concerns whether time spent in pending High Court writ proceedings may be excluded for calculating limitation for an appeal to the GST Appellate Tribunal. The writ petition challenged an Appellate Authority order when the Tribunal had not been constituted. After constitution of the Tribunal, the assessee proposes to withdraw the writ petition and file a statutory appeal, although the appeal period under Section 112 of the CGST Act has expired.