The court held that composite assessment orders for multiple financial years violate statutory provisions, emphasizing that each period must have a separate assessment to protect registered persons' rights.

JUDGMENT :

R. RAGHUNANDAN RAO, J.

1. As a common issue has been raised in all these writ petitions, they are being disposed of by way of this common order.

2. Heard Sri M.V.J.K. Kumar, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner in all the writ petitions and learned Government Pleader for Commercial Tax appearing for the respondents in all the writ petitions.

3. In all these cases, the petitioners, who are registered persons under the GST regime, are challenging the orders of assessment, on the grounds of lack of signature and lack of DIN number. Apart from this, the petitioners also challenge the impugned orders on the ground that different assessment years have been bunched together and a composite show cause notice and a composite order had been issued in relation to different tax periods, and the same is impermissible and not in accordance with the provisions of the APGST Act, 2017.

4. The details of the assessment years for which the impugned orders have been passed are set out below:

5. The petitioners, after having raised various grounds of challenge, have sought a direction on the ground that a single assessment order passed, for more than one financial year, would be violative of the provisions of Section 73 and Section 74 of the GST Act, 2017, and consequently set aside the orders of assessment/appeals.

6. The question of whether one assessment order can be passed in relation to more than one financial year had come up before various High Courts. The Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka, the Hon’ble High Court of Madras and the Hon’ble High Court of Kerala have held that a single, composite assessment order, cannot be passed for more than one financial year. On the other hand the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi as well as the Hon’ble High Court of Bombay had held that there can be one composite assessment order for more than one financial year. The details of the judgments passed by the respective High Courts are as follows:

7. The High Court at Madras dealt with this issue in Titan Company Ltd. vs. Joint Commissioner of GST and Central Excise, Salem , (2024) 124 GSTR 449 (Mad). In this case, while dealing with the question of bunching of show cause notices for five different assessment years, the Hon’ble High Court at Madras, after referring to the judgment of a Constitution Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in State Jammu & Kashmir and Ors. vs. Caltex India Ltd. AIR 1966 SC 1350 , had held that a single show cause notice cannot be issued for more than one financial year. However, since the issue was before the Hon’ble High Court of Madras, at the stage of show cause notice, the respondents were directed to co