TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
All orders passed by the first appellate authority in GST appeal to be revisited during August 2026.
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....ll orders passed by the first appellate authority in GST appeal to be revisited during August 2026.<br>By: - K Balasubramanian<br>Goods and Services Tax - GST<br>Dated:- 12-8-2026<br>As against the expected appeals before GSTAT by 31/07/2026 which was estimated around a minimum of 2,00,000 it is gathered from available sources that only 75,000 appeals have reached GSTAT as on 31/07/2026 including ....
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....token cases. It is once again reiterated in the interest of justice from all the concerned that August as well as September 2026 are golden months for all aggrieved taxpayers who got adverse orders from first appellate authority up to 31/05/2026. In case the deadline is missed and the OIA becomes final and enforceable, maximum damages are done with very little remedy by way of writ where chances a....
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....re that writ may be rejected due to non -choosing the efficacious GSTAT appeal route. This is being explained with a live story. One of the taxpayer, Laxmi Motors in the State of Madhya Pradesh got excellent relief from the High Court on 15/10/2025 in writ petition number 35184 of 2025. This judgement has beautifully analyzed the provisions contained in 107 (1) and 107 (4) and by relying upon t....
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....he general clauses act as well as the Supreme Court decision in the matter of State of Himachal Pradesh & Anr. Versus M/s Himachal Techno Engineers & Anr. - 2010 (7) TMI 875 - Supreme Court has concluded that the first appellate authority has wrongly dismissed the first appeal by incorrectly considering the limitation period as 120 days as against four months as provided in 107 (1) and 107 (4....
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....). The exact dates are tabled below. No Date Event 1 26/07/2024 Order In Original was passed 2 25/11/2024 First appeal filed with condonation of delay 3 13/08/2025 First appeal rejected on limitation ground 4 15/10/2025 OIA dated 13/08/2025 was set aside The beauty of the story is a cost of 25,000/ was imposed on the State Of Madhya Pradesh as the fi....
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....rst appeal was rejected by incorrect manner. This aspect is examined in detail below. The section 107 (1) uses the words as three months and not as 90 days. The section 107 (4) uses the words one month and not 30 days. Further, as per general clauses act, the date of passing the order against which appeal is preferred has to be excluded. Accordingly, the last date including one month condonation f....
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....ell on 26/11/2024 whereas the appeal was filed one day in advance on 25/11/2024 itself. The department always play a game by computing the limitation period availability by both methods of month as well as days and always rely on a period of lesser of these two on all border line cases. That is why the High Court has ruled that when the law is unambiguous by using the term as month, GST officers h....
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....ave conveniently interpreted as days and wrongly rejected the appeal. The story does not stop here. It gives us lot of take aways during the next two months, as during initial periods we may expect some leniency from benches of GSTAT on condonation as section 112 grants three months time to GSTAT for condonation. The implications of not preferring the second appeal in time which may later resul....
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....t in rejection of appeal by GSTAT on limitation ground are huge and the entire tax as decided in the OIA with applicable penalty as well as interest become recoverable from the taxpayers. This is more so on section 74 cases as the penalty happens to be the maximum. An analysis of several cases as decided by various high courts reveal that in majority of cases section 74 is improperly invoked in gr....
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....oss violations of CBIC instructions dated 13/12/2023 which read as "3.3 From the perusal of wording of section 74(1) of CGST Act, it is evident that section 74(1) can be invoked only in cases where there is a fraud or wilful mis- statement or suppression of facts to evade tax on the part of the said taxpayer. Section 74(1) cannot be invoked merely on account of non-payment of GST, without specific....
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.... element of fraud or wilful mis-statement or suppression of facts to evade tax. Therefore, only in the cases where the investigation indicates that there is material evidence of fraud or wilful mis-statement or suppression of fact to evade tax on the part of the taxpayer, provisions of section 74(1) of CGST Act may be invoked for issuance of show cause notice, and such evidence should also be made....
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.... a part of the show cause notice. 4. The above aspects may be kept in consideration while investigating such cases and issuing show cause notices'. Hence it is concluded that all cases where the first appeal was rejected on limitation as well as in cases where section 74 was improperly invoked, where there is a violation in principles of natural justice per 75(4), confirmation of excess ....
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....demand than in SCN as per 75(7) etc. deserves to be appealed before the GSTAT as quickly as possible and not later than 30/09/2026 at least for all legacy cases. Safest deadline: For cases where a token was obtained from GSTAT portal before 31/07/2026, 60 days from the date of generation of token number. For cases where no token could be generated but OIA is dated 30/04/2026 or earlier, 30/09/2....
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....026 with condonation of delay application on justifiable grounds. For all cases where OIA is dated from 01/05/2026 onwards, within three months from OIA date and with condonation of delay application if required so. Let us hope to have more cases being filed in the GSTAT in the next couple of months so as to ensure that the magic figure of 2,00,000 appeals before GSTAT becomes possible in 2026.....
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.... The Principal bench at Delhi and 31 State benches across all states in India with members already sitting shall bring huge relief to all concerned in terms of ending of the dispute. =============<br> Scholarly articles for knowledge sharing by authors, experts, professionals ....