2020 (10) TMI 1336

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....3 whereby the appeal u/s 107 of the Chhattisgarh G.S.T Act (hereinafter in short referred as "the Act") filed by the petitioner has been rejected on the ground of the same having barred by limitation. 2. The facts of the case is that the petitioner was claiming certain GST Input Credit which the Adjudicating Authority disallowed vide his/her order dated 26.06.2019 (Annexure P-2). The order of the Adjudicating Authority dated 26.06.2019 was challenged by the petitioner before the Appellate Authority u/s 107 of the Chhattisgarh G.S.T. Act which stands rejected on the ground of being barred by limitation. 3. It is necessary to understand at this juncture that the provisions of Section 107 of the Chhattisgarh GST Act provides for preferri....

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....on the ground under which the appeal could not be filed and the matter be remitted back for considering the case on its own merits. The other ground was that while rejecting the appeal, the Appellate Authority has not granted any opportunity of hearing explaining the delay for which reason also, the impugned order needs to be interfered with exercising the writ jurisdiction. 5. Shri Siddharth Dubey, learned Dy. Govt. Advocate referring to Section 107 of the Chhattisgarh GST Act submits that once when the law makers themselves have prescribed certain period of limitation for the authority to entertain an appeal at the first instance and the Appellate Authority further being conferred with the powers to condone the delay again within a fur....

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....er to condone the delay, if the appeal is filed within a period of one month from the date limitation stood expired. 7. The fact that there is an upper limit of one month provided in the statutes itself for preferring an appeal beyond the prescribed period of three months itself establishes the fact that beyond that extended period of one month after the expiry of period of limitation, the Appellate Authority becomes functus officio and would not be in a position to entertain the appeal nor does he have the power to condone the delay. The issue so far as condonation of delay is concerned beyond the limit permissible under the statutes came up for consideration before the Supreme Court recently in the case of M/s N.V. International vs. St....

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....esh High Court in Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. (supra), which had adopted the view taken by the Full Bench of the Gujarat High Court in Panoli Intermediate (India) Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India^19 and also of the Karnataka High Court in Phoenix Plasts Company v. Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeal-I), Bangalore^20 . The logic applied in these decisions proceeds on fallacious premise. For, these decisions are premised on the logic that provision such as Section 31 of the 1995 Act, cannot curtail the jurisdiction of the High Court under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution. This approach is faulty. It is not a matter of taking away the jurisdiction of the High Court. In a given case, the assessee may approach the High Court befo....