TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (8) TMI 978
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....ken by it on 24th August 2017 and reverted on 13th August 2018. Petitioner has also sought quashing of letter dated 28th January 2019 (Annexure 10) issued by the respondent no.3 whereby the objection of the petitioner against raising of the demand of interest under Section 50 of the Jharkhand Goods & Service Tax Act, 2017 (herein after to be referred as JGST Act) has been rejected. Petitioner has further sought declaration that it is not liable to pay interest for such mistake in filing GSTR-3B for the month of July 2017 wherein inadvertently he had included the transitional credit amount of Rs.3,11,43,255/ again though it was filed in GSTR TRAN-1 as transitional credit in terms of Section 140 of the Act. Petitioner has sought a protection from taking coercive action against it. In W.P.(T) No.2051 of 2020 petitioner has challenged the part of refund sanction order dated 9th November 2018 (Annexure 3), so far it relates to adjustment of refund against the demand of interest made in terms of letter dated 6th November 2018 impugned in W.P.(T) No.2043/2020. Petitioner has also laid challenge to the order dated 31^st January 2020 (Annexure 5) passed by the Additional Commissioner (Ap....
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....ner challenged the part of refund order in appeal The above mentioned adjustment of the refundable amount also contains the liability of interest. The appeal was dismissed vide order dated 31.01.2020 passed in appeal no.01/CGST/JSR/2020. 4. The grievance of the Petitioner is that though it submitted a detailed objection to the impugned letter dated 06.11.2018 before the respondent vide letter n o.351 dated 09.01.2019 the Respondent s vide letter no.309 dated 28.01.2019 (impugned letter) repeated its earlier stand and refused to accept the request made by the petitioner vide letter dated 02.11.2018 and 09.01.2019. The petitioner was requested to pay the balance of Rs.40,71,403/- towards interest payment after adjustment of the refund amount sanctioned in favour of the petitioner. 5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that interest under Section 50 of the JGST Act, 2017 which is primarily compensatory in nature cannot be levied upon the petitioner if the ITC has not been availed twice. Learned counsel further contended that when the dispute taking objection to the notice at Annexure 6 for payment of interest in terms of Section 50(3) of the JGST Act was made through rep....
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....a of taxpayer that the online portal had short comings is not tenable. Further, the taxpayer itself said that it was just on account of error of understanding and absence of adequate practice and confidence in the working of the new concept of Goods and Service Tax laws introduced for the first time in the year 2017 that the concerned accountant of the petitioner company repeated the said claim of transition credit for the same amount in the return furnished in the month of July, 2017. The taxpayer himself said that they were ignorant of law and procedures related to CGST Act, 2017. It is established law that ignorance of law cannot be a n excuse for non compliance of legal provisions. The petitioner try to put their failure on online portal which is not correct and tenable. The department correctly issued letter to deposit interest on input Tax Credit wrongly availed by the petitioner. Section 50(3) of the CGST Act, 2017 stipulates that 'A taxable person who makes an undue or excess claim of Input Tax Credit under Sub section (10) of Section 42 or undue or excess reduction in Output Tax liability under Sub section (10) of Section 43, shall pay interest on such undue or exces....
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....s. Union of India reported in 2020 (33) GSTL 343 (Jhr.) wherein this Court has laid down the law as under: "21. It is not a true that liability of interest under Section 50 of the CGST Act is automatic, but the said amount of interest is required to be calculated and intimated to an assesse. If an assesse disputes the liability of interest i.e. either disputes its calculation or ev en the leviability of interest, then the only option left for the Assessing Officer is to initiate proceedings either under Section 73 or 74 of the Act for adjudication of the liability of interest. Recently, the Hon'ble Madras High Court, in its decision dated 19^th December, 2019 rendered in Writ Appeals in the case of The Assistant Commissioner of CGST & Central Excise and others Vs. Daejung Moparts Pvt. Ltd. and ors, has taken similar view. The said Writ Appeals were initially decided by a Two Judges Bench of the Hon'ble Madras High Court and divergent views were taken by the Hon'ble Judges on the issue of initiation of adjudication proceedings before imposing liability of interest under Section 50 of the Act. The matter was, thus, referred to learned Third 12 Judge, which was decided vide J....
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....y, raised by the assesse. It is to be noted that the term "automatic" does not mean or to be construed as excluding "the arithmetic exercise". In other words, though liability to pay interest arises under Section 50 of the said Act, it does not mean that fixing the quantum of such liability can be unilateral, especially, when the assesse disputes the quantum as well as the period of liability. Therefore, in my considered view, though the liability of interest under section 50 is automatic, quantification of such liability shall have to be made by doing the arithmetic exercise, after considering the objections of the assessee. Thus I answer the first issue accordingly. xxx xxx xxx 31. It is to be noted at this juncture that in both the writ petitions, the respective writ petitioners are not disputing their liability to pay the interest on the delayed payment of tax. On the other hand, they are disputing the quantum of interest claimed by the Revenue by contending that the interest liability was worked out on the entire tax liability instead of restricting the liability to the extent of tax unpaid. It is further seen that the writ petitioners have placed some worksheets, ....