2025 (12) TMI 1536

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....y the respondent No.3/Joint Commissioner, State Tax cum Appellate Officer, State GST, whereby the appeal of the petitioner has been dismissed and it is seeking refund of amount of Rs. 2.17.305/-. Facts of the case, in short, are as under:- 1. The petitioner-company is a manufacturer of lead-acid batteries registered under the Goods and Services Tax (GST), having a registered office at Karakambadi, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh and distribution centres all over the States. 2. The petitioner has two registered addresses in the State of Madhya Pradesh; i.e. one in Indore and the other in Jabalpur, with a common GST number i.e. 23AABCA9264E2ZW. The petitioner also has a warehouse for the storage of batteries in Ahmedabad. 3. On 26.02.201....

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....d by the petitioner. The petitioner deposited the said penalty amount under protest and got the vehicles and goods released on 02.03.2019. Thereafter, the petitioner preferred an appeal under Section 107 of the GST Act, 2017, before Respondent No.3/Joint Commissioner, which came to be dismissed vide order dated 18.12.2019. Hence, this writ petition is before this Court. Submissions of learned counsel for the petitioner and the respondent/State. 5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner admitted the mistake of mentioning the wrong address in the E-way bill. The petitioner had no intention to evade the tax liability because the tax amount had already been paid. Had there been an intention to avoid the tax, no E-w....

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....the amount of penalty be refunded to the petitioner. 8. Learned counsel appearing for the respondent/State submits that the provisions of circular dated 14th September, 2018 issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) will not apply in the case of petitioner as this case is not falling under Clause 5(c) of CBIC i.e. "Error in the address of the consignee to the extent that the locality and other details of the consignee are correct;" on which the learned counsel for the petitioner has placed heavy reliance. The facts of the present case are distinguishable from the facts of the case in Robbins Tunnelling and Trenchless Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd (supra). 9. The aforesaid facts of the case are not in dispute. The ....

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...., release and confiscation of such goods and conveyances. As per Clause 5 of the said circular, in case a consignment of goods is accompanied by an invoice or any other specified document and also an E-way bill, the proceedings under Section 129 of the CGST Act may not be initiated in certain situations enumerated in sub-clauses (a) to (d). Clause 5 of the said circular is reproduced below for ready reference and convenience:- "5. Further, in case a consignment of goods is accompanied with an invoice or any other specified document and also an e-way bill, proceedings under section 129 of the CGST Act may not be initiated, inter alia, in the following situations: a) Spelling mistakes in the name of the consignor or the cons....

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....ituation, vicinity in a town; and if there is a mistake in mentioning the address or location, that error can be ignored or will not attract Section 129 of the CGST but here, when the truck was apprehended, it had crossed the Indore city and truck was apprehended near Bhopal i.e. 200 Kms. away from the destination given in the E-way bill. Heard. 12. According to the Officers of the GST department, namely, Smt. Preeti Prabhulata, Joint Commissioner of State Tax, Bhopal, Shri Sandeep Shrivastava, Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, Bhopal and Shri Bholamram Pandey, State Tax Officer, Bhopal, the GST department has no other way to track the shipments/ consignments except apprehending or detention and searching the papers. There is no su....