TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (9) TMI 2059
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....RC-07 - ZD220424031912T dated 25.04.2024), was sustained. The appeal concerns denial of input tax credit for FY 2018-19 on account of excess IGST credit shown in FORM GSTR-3B over the credit reflected in FORM GSTR-2A, together with interest of and penalty. 2. The controversy arises in the initial years of GST. It therefore requires the statutory conditions for input tax credit to be applied as they stood during FY 2018-19, without importing later matching requirements retrospectively. At the same time, non-reflection in GSTR-2A does not by itself establish entitlement to credit. The claimant must establish the substantive conditions of Section 16, and Section 155 places the burden of proving eligibility upon the person claiming the credit. CBIC Circular No. 183/15/2022-GST dated 27.12.2022 provides a special verification mechanism for specified GSTR-3B/GSTR-2A differences for FY 2017-18 and FY 2018-19; the appellant invokes that Circular. I. FACTUAL MATRIX 3. The appellant is a proprietary concern registered under GST. Scrutiny of its returns for FY 2018-19 disclosed, according to the Department, excess availment of IGST input tax credit of Rs.70,774 in FORM GSTR-3B when c....
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....ZJ, as recipient, and records taxable value Rs.3,54,618.12 and IGST Rs.63,831.26/27. Its evidentiary status before this Tribunal is considered separately below. 9. The adjudicating authority passed the order dated 25.04.2024 and issued FORM GST DRC-07 bearing Reference No. ZD220424031912T, confirming IGST Rs.70,774, interest Rs.61,742 and penalty Rs.10,000, aggregating Rs.1,42,516. 10. A written submission dated 29.04.2024 was thereafter prepared by the appellant. It relied upon Circular No. 183/15/2022-GST, the supplier declaration, the three invoices and the party ledger. Since it post-dates, the order dated 25.04.2024, it could not have formed part of the adjudication record. The appellant's later material states that it had been prepared for submission before the proper officer but was not accepted after the order had already been passed. 11. The appellant filed the first appeal in FORM GST APL-01 on 06.05.2024. The expanded APL-01 compilation subsequently produced before this Tribunal contains a written submission before the Appellate Authority, Circular No. 183/15/2022-GST, the supplier declaration dated 15.04.2024, the three invoices and the supplier ledger. We ther....
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....s, as Annexure D, transportation documents including the e-way bill for Invoice No. 01394. The record before us does not establish that Annexure D formed part of the adjudication record; nor does the material establish its consideration by the First Appellate Authority. To the extent any such document was introduced for the first time before this Tribunal, its mere upload cannot be equated with admission of additional evidence contrary to the order dated 16.09.2026 and Rule 45 of the GSTAT (Procedure) Rules, 2025. 17. A material oral admission was made on behalf of the appellant at final hearing: The appellant stated that it had no contemporaneous material explaining the alleged B2C reporting error and that the discrepancy itself came to its knowledge only when ASMT-10/DRC-01 was issued. We clarify that this admission does not mean that no contemporaneous commercial documents exist; the invoices and certain transportation/payment records are contemporaneous. The admission is relevant to the narrower proposition that there is no contemporaneous material showing detection, reconciliation or explanation of the alleged B2C/B2B reporting error during FY 2018-19. Submissions of the....
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....chose not to make when statutory opportunities were available. 24. The respondent disputes that the later supplier certificate by itself proves compliance with Section 16(2)(c). It emphasises Section 155 and submits that the claimant must prove the genuine transaction, receipt/movement and tax payment. Reliance is placed on State of Karnataka v. Ecom Gill Coffee Trading (P) Ltd., (2023) 18 SCC 809. 25. The respondent also submits that the three invoices aggregate only Rs.66,193.66 of IGST against the disputed Rs.70,774 and therefore leave Rs.4,580.34 wholly unsupported. It opposes the appellant's attempt to net IGST against alleged short-availment under CGST/SGST, having regard to the distinct statutory tax heads and utilisation scheme. 26. The respondent distinguishes Commr. of State Tax v. Suncraft Energy (P) Ltd., (2024) 121 GSTR 290 on facts, pointing out that the taxpayer there had responded to scrutiny and show-cause proceedings and had placed material before the authority, whereas the present appellant remained silent at adjudication and did not prosecute the first appeal on the dates of hearing. 27. On interest and penalty, the respondent submits that they follo....
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....T was issued specifically to deal with differences between ITC availed in GSTR-3B and that available in GSTR-2A for FY 2017-18 and FY 2018-19. One expressly contemplated situation is where supplies were made to a registered person and a Rule 46 invoice containing the recipient's GSTIN was issued, but the supplier wrongly reported the supply as B2C instead of B2B in GSTR-1. 32. The Circular requires the proper officer first to obtain invoice-wise details and to ascertain, in respect of such invoices, possession of the tax invoice, receipt of goods/services and payment of value together with tax to the supplier. For the Section 16(2)(c) condition, where the supplier-wise difference for the financial year is up to Rs.5 lakh, the Circular contemplates a certificate from the concerned supplier that the supplies were actually made to the registered person and the tax on those supplies was paid by the supplier in its GSTR-3B. The Circular thus relaxes the mode of verification for historical mismatch cases; it does not dispense with the need for the factual case asserted by the claimant to be credible and established on the record. 33. For June 2018, Section 31(1) of the CGST Act req....
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....ng authority. Section 113 confers wider powers upon the Appellate Tribunal, including confirmation, modification, annulment and, where appropriate, remand. The existence of a remand power does not mean that it should be exercised to provide repeated opportunities to a party which failed to use opportunities already afforded. 37. Rule 45 of the GSTAT (Procedure) Rules, 2025 restricts production of additional evidence before the Tribunal, subject to specified exceptions and the Tribunal's power where evidence is necessary to enable it to pass orders or for other substantial cause. Additional evidence is not a device to fill an evidentiary lacuna after the hearing has exposed it. V. FINDINGS AND REASONS A. GSTR-2A mismatch is a trigger, not the sole test 38. We accept the legal proposition, in the abstract, that for FY 2018-19 ITC could not be denied merely because an invoice did not appear in GSTR-2A. The statutory scheme then in force did not contain Section 16(2)(aa). The decisions in Suncraft Energy (Supra) and Diya Agencies v. STO, (2024) 124 GSTR 172 decided on 12.09.2023 by the Hon'ble Kerala High Court and Circular No. 183 itself, reinforce that an old-period misma....
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.... C. The three invoices and Circular No. 183 43. The three invoices are genuine-looking contemporaneous commercial documents and contain the appellant's GSTIN. The ledger also records the transactions and receipts. We therefore do not reject the claim merely because the invoices are absent from GSTR-2A. The question is narrower: has the appellant established that the absence resulted from the particular B2C reporting error asserted and that all conditions for credit stand proved? 44. Circular No. 183 recognises that a supplier may issue an invoice containing the registered recipient's GSTIN yet wrongly report it as B2C. The mere unusualness of such an error cannot therefore be a ground to reject the claim. Equally, the Circular does not deem every missing invoice to have been wrongly reported as B2C merely because the supplier later says so. 45. The supplier certificate dated 15.04.2024 is of the kind contemplated by paragraph 4 of Circular No. 183 for a supplier-wise difference not exceeding Rs.5 lakh: it states that the supplies were made to the appellant, that the tax was paid through the supplier's GSTR-3B, and that the invoices were inadvertently reported as B2C instea....
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....ous document is material corroboration of the registered recipient's identity and the declared movement of goods. It does not, by itself, establish how the supplier subsequently classified the invoice in GSTR-1 or whether the corresponding tax was discharged through GSTR-3B. 49. The E-way Bill and other transport documents are reproduced in the 45-page compilation filed on 21.09.2026. The Tribunal's order dated 16.09.2026 expressly stated that uploading documents would not, by itself, amount to their admission as additional evidence. To the extent any document was not already part of the first appellate record, its admission remains governed by Rule 45 of the GSTAT (Procedure) Rules, 2025. Even giving the transport documents their full corroborative value, they cannot alone prove the supplier's later GSTR-1 classification. 50. We accordingly do not reject the claim because the appellant failed to produce documents which Circular No. 183 does not mandate for the up-to-Rs.5 lakh category. The difficulty is one of proof on the peculiar record. The asserted B2C explanation was not offered in response to ASMT-10 or DRC-01; the supplier certificate was obtained only after those pro....
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....h decision in Sumetco Alloys Private Limited v. Union of India, D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 9323/2026, decided on 13.08.2026 (Rajasthan High Court), while dealing directly with the CGST Act, has reiterated that Section 155 places the burden of establishing ITC eligibility on the claimant and has referred to Ecom Gill on the evidentiary burden. The controversy there concerned later tax periods and different allegations; we rely upon it only for the statutory proposition concerning Section 155, not as deciding the present Circular No. 183 factual scenario. 55. Suncraft Energy Pvt. Ltd. v. Assistant Commissioner, State Tax, MAT 1218 of 2023, decided on 02.08.2023 by the Hon'ble Calcutta High Court, concerned FY 2017-18 mismatch where the recipient had replied to scrutiny and show-cause proceedings and placed its case before the authority. The Court held, on those facts, that reversal against the recipient could not mechanically follow from non-reflection in GSTR-2A without appropriate inquiry concerning the supplier. The Special Leave Petitions were dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court on 14.12.2023 expressly having regard to the facts and circumstances and the relatively low de....
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....y underway. Both decisions reinforce the need to consider available evidence and the prescribed procedure; neither treats a late certificate as automatically conclusive. The factual setting and procedural record here must be separately assessed. E. Residual amount of Rs.4,580.34 60. There is an independent and decisive deficiency regarding the balance amount. The three Glo Panels invoices account for IGST of Rs.66,193.66 only. Against the disputed IGST of Rs.70,774, the residual Rs.4,580.34 is not supported by any identified invoice, supplier certificate or transaction-wise explanation. The appellant cannot obtain relief for this amount merely by describing the difference as minor. Rule 36 and Section 155 require documentary foundation for the credit claimed. The demand to this extent therefore survives independently. F. Cross-head or 'overall ITC' argument 61. The appellant's contention that CGST/SGST credit was lower than GSTR-2A and that, on an overall basis, there was no excess credit does not answer the disputed IGST availment. IGST, CGST and SGST are distinct statutory tax heads and are subject to the utilisation mechanism in Sections 49 and 49A and the applicable....
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....3, including remand. The power is discretionary and is to be exercised where a further factual inquiry is necessary for a fair decision. The transactions are of June 2018; the discrepancy was raised in October 2023; adjudication followed in April 2024; and the appellant has now received a full hearing before this Tribunal in September 2026, together with a specific post-hearing opportunity concerning the evidentiary record. No sufficient reason has been shown why the documents and the asserted B2C reporting error could not have been properly explained at the earlier stages. On the present record, further remand is not necessary to decide the pleaded grounds and would only prolong the dispute. 65. The authorities such as LGW Industries Ltd. v. Union of India and Diya Agencies (supra), where remand was directed to enable verification of ITC claims, arose in materially different procedural settings. They do not establish that remand is mandatory whenever a recipient subsequently produces invoices or supplier material. In the present case, adequate and repeated opportunities have already been afforded. The appeal is therefore fit to be decided on the record. H. Interest 66. Th....
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....tisfy Section 16 and the burden under Section 155. B. Circular No. 183/15/2022-GST is applicable in principle to a genuine case where a Rule 46 invoice containing the recipient's GSTIN was wrongly reported by the supplier as B2C instead of B2B. The Circular does not deem the asserted reporting error proved merely upon production of a later certificate. C. The appellant did not reply to ASMT-10 or DRC-01, did not place the material before the adjudicating authority, and did not appear on either date of personal hearing before the First Appellate Authority. It nevertheless received full opportunity before this Tribunal, including the specific opportunity granted on 16.09.2026. D. Circular No. 183 does not make supplier GSTR-1/B2CL data an additional mandatory document where the supplier-wise difference is up to Rs.5 lakh. Nevertheless, on the cumulative evidentiary record, the appellant has not satisfactorily established the specific assertion that the three invoices were actually reported as B2C and that the tax-payment/reporting explanation embodied in the later supplier certificate is sufficient to discharge the burden under Sections 16 and 155. ....