Petitioner's right to appeal was upheld despite procedural impediments due to frozen bank accounts, allowing extension of limitation for appeal filing.

ORDER :

M. NAGAPRASANNA, J.

The petitioner is before this Court seeking the following prayers:

"(a) Issue a writ of Mandamus, or such other writ, order or direction as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and accord liberty to the Petitioner to file appeal against the Order of Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Audit) - 5.10, DGSTO-5 in No.DCCT(AUDIT-5.10)/DGSTO-5/ADJ/2024-25 dated 04.02.2025 within a further period of two months, which order is herewith enclosed as Annexure "C" and

(b) To provide any other relief deemed fit in the ends of justice and equity."

2. Heard Shri B.G. Chidananda Urs, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners and Shri K. Hema Kumar, learned Additional Government Advocate appearing for the respondents.

3. The petitioner is registered under the provisions of the GST Act. What brings him to this court in the subject petition is the non entertainment of the appeal on the score under Section 107 of the CGST Act, 2017 on the score that he has failed to file an appeal, which in fact has resulted on the score that he is unable to make the deposit.

4. Facts in brief germane are as follows:

The petitioner is said to be an undertaking, which serves manpower recruitment. The petitioner during the relevant point in time is said to have closed its business and assessment for the earlier years was pending before the respondent - authority. The adjudicating authority passes an order against the petitioner, which the petitioner wanted to challenge it in appeal. The impediment was, as the account of the petitioner was frozen till 28.05.2025, which was during the period within which the petitioner had to prefer an appeal before the Appellate Authority. Therefore, with the freezing of the account, which was the only account that was linked to the GST of the petitioner, the petitioner could not prefer an appeal, as he could not operate the bank account.

5. In that light, the petitioner has not preferred an appeal, the bank account gets defrozen at a later point in time, then the petitioner even if wanted to prefer an appeal, could not, as the limitation period for filing an appeal was over.

6. In identical circumstances, the co-ordinate bench of this court in WP.No.4720/2024 connected with others disposed on 04.07.2025 has held as follows:

1. " In all the above matters, the petitioner is before this Court challenging the order passed under Section 74(9) of the Karnataka Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the KGST Act’ for short) by virtue of which the petitioner had been directed to make payment of dues along with penalty as indicated therein. The petitioner had sought to challenge the same by way of an appeal filed on 13.07.2022 in terms of Annexure – Q. However, the petitioner could not make payment of 10% statutory pre-deposit on account of the bank accounts of the petitioner having been frozen in certain other proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. As such, the appeal was not taken up for consideration.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that subsequently, the proceedings against the petitioner under the PMLA have been answered in favour of the petitioner and the Bank accounts have now been defrozen. Now the petitioner has the monies to make payment of the statutory pre- deposit. Her submission is that since the appeal had been filed in the year 2022, there would be requirement for a direction to be passed to the respondents to accept the said pre-deposit amount and consider the appeal on merits.

3. Learned counsel for the respondents submits that if the pre-deposit is made, the appeal would be considered on merits.