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2019 Supreme(Del) 2527
IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
S.MURALIDHAR, TALWANT SINGH, JJ.
M/S BLUE BIRD PURE PVT. LTD. – Petitioner
versus
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. – Respondents
W.P.(C) 3798/2019
Decided On : 22-07-2019
For the Appellant :Mrs. Anjali J. Manish and Mr. Priyadarshi Manish, Advocates
For the Appellant :Mr. Anil Dabas and Mr. Praveen Kumar, Advocates for Respondent No. 1 Mr. Harpreet Singh, Senior Standing Counsel for Respondent Nos. 2 and 3 with Ms. Suhani Mathur, Advocate Mr. Satyakam, ASC, Govt. Of NCT of Delhi/ Respondent Nos. 4 and 5
Genuine difficulties in rectifying errors in GST forms should not preclude claim examination by authorities. Need for a facility for rectification of errors in the system and a robust Grievance Redressal Mechanism.
Headnote:
CENVAT Credit - GST TRAN-1 Form - Central Excise Act, 1944, Central Goods and Services Act, 2017 - Section 140(5), Section 164 - Rule 117 of the CGST Rules
Fact of the Case:
The Petitioner, a company engaged in manufacturing and trading of water purifiers, sought to rectify an inadvertent error in the GST TRAN-1 Form which prevented it from availing the Central GST Credit. The Petitioner's repeated representations to rectify the error were not addressed by the Respondents, leading to the filing of the present petition.
Finding of the Court:
The Court found the Petitioner's difficulty in filling up the correct credit amount in the TRAN-1 form to be genuine and issued directions to the Respondents to enable the Petitioner to rectify the form electronically or manually. The Court also directed the Respondents to consider providing a facility for rectification of such errors in the system and to establish a robust Grievance Redressal Mechanism.
Issues: Rectification of inadvertent error in GST TRAN-1 Form, Failure of Respondents to address Petitioner's representations
Ratio Decidendi: The Court held that the Petitioner's genuine difficulty in rectifying the error should not preclude it from having its claim examined by the authorities. The Court also emphasized the need for a facility for rectification of errors in the system and a robust Grievance Redressal Mechanism.
Final Decision: The writ petition was disposed of with directions to the Respondents to enable the Petitioner to rectify the TRAN-1 Form and to waive off the penalty and interest for late filing of GSTR-3B, subject to the Petitioner filing the rectified TRAN-1 Form as directed.
ORDER
Dr. S. Muralidhar, J.:
1. Notice. Notice is accepted by learned counsel for the Respondents.
2. Counter-affidavit filed on behalf of Respondent Nos. 2 and 3 is already on record.
3. The Petitioner is a company having its registered office in New Delhi, engaged in the manufacturing and trading of water purifiers. It is duly registered with the Excise Department and under the Central Excise Act, 1944 and the Rules under which it is entitled to take the CENVAT credit on input used for manufacturing of the finished goods. After the enactment of Central Goods and Services Act, 2017 (CGST Act), the Petitioner got itself registered with the Goods and Service Tax Department. A registration number was issued to it on 26th September, 2017.
4. The Central Government in exercise of the powers under Section 140(5) read with Section 164 of CGST Act read with Rule 117 of the CGST Rules prescribed the GST TRAN- 1 Form which was required to be filed online as a condition precedent for allowing the Petitioner to carry forward the CENVAT credit that was available to it as on the date of coming into force of the CGST Act. The Petitioner states that it filled and filed online the GST TRAN-1 Form on 27th December, 2017. The specific averment is that it committed an inadvertent error in showing the available stock of goods as on 30th June, 2017 in column 7(d) of the Form instead of column 7(a) of the Form. It is stated that as a result of this error, the Petitioner has been unable to avail of the Central GST Credit in respect thereof.
5. It is further averred in the petition that after the due date for filing of the TRAN-1 Form was crossed, the system got locked down at the portal and no tax payer was able to view/mend their TRAN-1 forms. The portal opened up on 15th March, 2018 for filing the TRAN- 2 Returns. It was at that stage that the Petitioner realised that it had committed an inadvertent error in the TRAN-1 Form. The system, however, did not permit the Petitioner to revise the TRAN-1 Form.
6. On 23rd April, 2018, the Petitioner addressed a representation to Officer, Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Delhi, GST-ITO (Respondent No. 5), admitting to having committed the abovementioned inadvertent error and seeking permission to rectify the mistake. The credit amount involved was Rs.20,34,807/-. It is pointed out that on account of inability to avail of the above credit amount, the Petitioner was not in a position to file the GSTR- 3B returns.
7. The Petitioner further states that on the said representation, the GSTO stated that it will be forwarded to the GST Council for further action. However, nothing happened. The Petitioner addressed further letters on 19 th September, 2018 to SPOC and 24th September, 2018 to the Commissioner, Delhi GST, but was not permitted to rectify the TRAN-1 Form already filed online. An e-mail was addressed to the GSTN Nodal Officer on 22nd October, 2018 explaining the Petitioner's difficulty. After several reminders bore no results, the present petition was filed.
8. Learned counsel for the Petitioner has referred to the two decisions of this Court, namely, Bhargava Motors v. Union of India, decision dated 13th May, 2019 in WP(C) 1280/2018 and Kusum Enterprises Pvt. Ltd v. Union of India, 2019-TIOL-1509-HC-DEL-GST, where in similar circumstances, the Court issued directions to the Respondents to either open the portal to enable the Petitioner to rectify the TRAN-1 Form electronically or permit the Petitioner to do it manually.
9. Learned counsel for Respondents sought to distinguish the applicability of the above decisions on the ground that in those cases there was a glitch in the system which prevented those Petitioners from correcting the credit amount in the TRAN-1 Form, whereas in the present case the mistake was by the Petitioner in filling up the stock quantity in the wrong column.
10. Having carefully examined those decisions, the Court is unable to find any distinguishing feature that should deny the Petitioner a r
