TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (1) TMI 838
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....followed in the judgment of the same High Court in the case of Aberdare Technologies Pvt. Ltd. & Another Vs. Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs and Ors., passed in Writ Petition No.7912 of 2024, dated 29.07.2024. 3. Reliance is also placed by the learned advocate Mr. Uchit Sheth appearing for the petitioners, on the order dated 12.01.2023 passed by the High Court of Orissa at Cuttack in Writ Petition (Civil) No.18216 of 2017 in the case of M/s. Shiva Jyoti Construction Vs. The Chairperson, Central Board of Excise and Customs and Others. 4. The petitioners had initially filed the captioned writ petition being Special Civil Application No. 783 of 2021, praying for directions to the respondents to forthwith re-credit/refund the amount of Rs. 10,99,06,850/- recovered from him at the time of inspection by coercing him to file Form DRC-03 on the portal. 5. Subsequently, the respondents passed an order dated 26.12.2023, whereby the respondent-Additional Commissioner refused to grant appropriation of the tax amount paid by the petitioners, and as such, the captioned writ petition being Special Civil Application No. 783 of 2021 was filed. 6. Learned advocate Mr. Uchit She....
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....the extent of Rs. 34,26,33,614/-. The impugned order dated 26.12.2023 was passed by the respondents denying the reversal of input tax credit. It is not in dispute that the amount of tax paid by the petitioners towards discount given by the vendor exceeds the disallowance of input tax credit, and the authorities have confirmed the demand of tax by holding that the petitioners ought to have claimed refund insofar as tax paid on debit notes is concerned. 9. In paragraph Nos. 7 to 23 of the judgment in the case of Star Engineers (I) Pvt. Ltd.(supra), the Bombay High Court has observed thus : : - "7. Mr. Raichandani, learned Counsel for the petitioner would submit that it was arbitrary for the Deputy Commissioner of State Tax to reject the request of the petitioner to amend or rectify the Form GSTR1 filed by the petitioner for the period July 2021, November 2021 and January 2022, either Online or by manual means. It is contended that it is not in dispute and as clear from the impugned letter, that there was no loss of revenue to the Government exchequer, however, on a pure technical ground the provisions of GSTR Portal prohibited any adjustment post the due date, the petitio....
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....ion 38 provides for furnishing details of inward supplies. Section 39 provides for furnishing of returns. Subsection (3) of Section 37 provides that any registered person, who has furnished the details under sub-section (1) for any tax period and which have remained unmatched under Section 42 or Section 43, shall, upon discovery of any error or omission therein, rectify such error or omission in such manner as may be prescribed, and shall pay the tax and interest, if any, in case there is a short payment of tax on account of such error or omission, in the return to be furnished for such tax period. The proviso below sub-section (3) stipulates that no rectification of error or omission in respect of the details furnished under sub-section (1) shall be allowed after furnishing of the return under Section 39 for the month of September, following the end of the financial year to which such details pertain, or furnishing of the relevant annual return, whichever is earlier. It would be necessary to note the provisions of Section 37 which reads thus:- Section 37 Furnishing details of outward supplies 37. (1) Every registered person, other than an Input Service Distributo....
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....the rectification of error or omission in respect of the details furnished under sub-section (1) shall be allowed after furnishing of the return under section 39 for the month of September, 2018 till the due date for furnishing the details under sub-section (1) for the month of March, 2019 or for the quarter January, 2019 to March, 2019. Explanation.-For the purposes of this Chapter, the expression "details of outward supplies" shall include details of invoices, debit notes, credit notes and revised invoices issued in relation to outward supplies made during any tax period." 10. We may also observed that Section 38 provides for communication of details of inward supplies and input tax credit which in sub-section (1) mandates that the details of outward supplies furnished by the registered persons under sub-section (1) of section 37 and of such other supplies as may be prescribed, and an auto-generated statement containing the details of input tax credit shall be made available electronically to the recipients of such supplies in such form and manner, within such time, and subject to such conditions and restrictions as may be prescribed. Sub-section (2) provides fo....
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....llowed to furnish a return for a tax period if the return for any of the previous tax periods 9[or the details of outward supplies under subsection (1) of section 37 for the said tax period has not been furnished by him: Provided that the Government may, on the recommendations of the Council, by notification, subject to such conditions and restrictions as may be specified therein, allow a registered person or a class of registered persons to furnish the return, even if he has not furnished the returns for one or more previous tax periods or has not furnished the details of outward supplies under sub-section (1) of section 37 for the said tax period." 12. Having considered the statutory ambit of Section 37, 38 and 39, we are of the clear opinion that the provisions of sub-section (3) of Section 37 read with Section 38 and sub-sections (9) and (10) of Section 39 need to be purposively interpreted. We cannot read subsection (3) of Section 37 to mean that the assessee would be prevented from placing the correct position and having accurate particulars in regard to all the details in the GST returns being filed by the assessee and that there would not be any scope for ....
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....apposite. In Sun Dye Chem Vs. Assistant Commissioner (supra), learned Single Judge of the Madras High Court considered a similar case wherein an error was committed by the petitioner in filing of details relating to credit. The error was to the effect that what should have figured in the CGST/SGST column was inadvertently reflected in the IGST column. It was not the case of the department that the error was deliberate and was intended to gain any undue benefit by the petitioner and in fact, by reason of the error, the customers of the petitioner were denied credit which they claim to be legitimately entitled to. It was also an error which was not initially noted by the petitioner, and on account of the error, the customers of the petitioner would be denied credit which they claimed to be legitimately entitled to, owing to the fact that the credit stands reflected in the wrong column. It is in these circumstances, after examining the relevant provisions which we have already discussed, the learned Single Judge observed that in the absence of an enabling mechanism, the assessee should not be prejudiced from availing credit which they are otherwise legitimately entitled to. The Court ....
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....d above, it would lead us to observe that the GST regime as contemplated under the GST Law unlike the prior regime, has evolved a scheme which is largely based on the electronic domain. The diversity, in which the traders and the assessees in our country function, with the limited expertise and resources they would have, cannot be overlooked, in the expectation the present regime would have in the traders / assessees complying with the provisions of the GST Laws. There are likely to be inadvertent and bona fide human errors, in the assessees adopting themselves to the new regime. For a system to be understood and operate perfectly, it certainly takes some time. The provisions of law are required to be alive to such considerations and it is for such purpose the substantive provisions of sub-section (3) of Section 37 and sub-section (9) of Section 39 minus the proviso, have permitted rectification of inadvertent errors. 21. We may also observe that the situation like in the present case, was also the situation in the proceedings before the different High Courts as noted by us above, wherein the errors of the assessee were inadvertent and bona fide. There was not an iota of a....
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....credit earlier claimed on the basis of the tax invoices of the vendor by the amount of tax relating to the credit notes issued by the vendor for the discounts given to the petitioners. It appears that while matching the figures of input tax credit, the GST portal takes into account only the amounts accounted for as receipt of credit notes by the buyer in Form GSTR-1, and the portal does not take into account the debit notes issued by the buyer with reference to the discounts given by the seller, even though tax liability under the GST Acts are admitted and paid on such debit notes, thereby effectively reducing the input tax credit. Accordingly, Form GSTR-2A reflected a mismatch of input tax credit in the case of the petitioners. Thus, the petitioners erred in issuing debit notes for the discounted amount by showing the amount of discount in the wrong column in Form GSTR-1. 12. The respondents have not demonstrated that there was any difference in the actual tax liability of the petitioners, even if their case is assumed to be legally tenable. The petitioner had pointed out such error to the respondent authorities and had also submitted an affidavit dated 04.01.2021 affirming tha....