Taxpayer should be afforded an opportunity to be heard, and the Adjudicating Authority should determine the amount of refund admissible.

JUDGMENT

Vibhu Bakhru, J.

1. Issue notice.

2. The learned counsel for the respondents accepts notice.

3. The petitioner has filed the present petition, inter alia, impugning an Order-in-Appeal dated 18.11.2021 whereby, the appeals preferred by the petitioner (eight in number) against the eight separate orders, all dated 31.12.2020, passed by the Adjudicating Authority, were rejected.

4. The petitioner is engaged in the manufacturing of Polypropylene Yarn and Polypropylene narrow woven fabric, which is chargeable to Goods and Services Tax (GST) at the rate of 12% and 5% respectively.

5. The petitioner claims that raw materials used for manufacturing of the product (Granules, Master Batch, Spin Finish Oil) are chargeable to GST at the rate of 18%. The petitioner, thus, claims that due to the inverted tax structure, it is unable to avail the entire credit of input tax paid by it on inputs in discharge of its tax liability on output.

6. In the aforesaid circumstances, the petitioner had filed refund applications dated 23.10.2020 for various tax periods from August, 2018 to March, 2019. The petitioner received "Notice of Rejection of Application for Refund" dated 18.12.2020 (hereafter `Show Cause Notice') in respect of each of its refund applications. The petitioner was also called upon to show cause as to why its refund applications should not be rejected.

7. The aforementioned notices indicated that the petitioner's applications for refund were proposed to be rejected for the reason that there was mismatch with the returns filed by the petitioner in form GSTR 2A. The petitioner responded to the said show cause notices and furnished a reconciliation statement for each tax period. However, the petitioner's applications (except for application relating to the tax period between August 2018 to September, 2018, which was rejected on the ground of limitation) were rejected for the same reason as stated in the show cause notices- mismatch with the returns filed by the petitioner).

8. Aggrieved by the said rejection orders dated 31.12.2020, the petitioner preferred appeals before the Appellate Authority under Section 107 of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017 (hereafter `the CGST Act'). The said appeals have been rejected by a common Order-in-Appeal dated 18.11.2021, which is impugned in the present petition.

9. The petitioner challenges the impugned Order-in-Appeal dated 18.11.2021 essentially on two grounds. First, that the petitioner was not afforded an opportunity to be heard by the Adjudicating Authority and thus, the refund rejection orders were required to be set aside. Second that the petitioner had furnished the reconciliation statement scaling down its claims for refund, yet the same were rejected on the ground that there was a mismatch in the returns filed.

10. A plain reading of the impugned Order-in-Appeal dated 18.11.2021 indicates that the petitioner's applications for refund were rejected on the ground that the petitioner had changed the value of the inverted rated supply of goods substantially. The relevant extract of the impugned Order in Appeal dated 18.11.2021 reads as under:

"5.8 From, the above, it can be seen that the appellant is changing the value of inverted rated supply of goods very frequently and drastically. I also noticed that in the reconciliation statement, the appellant has included the value of waste of HSN 55051090 attracting GST @ 18%, goods of HSN code 5402 of traded goods which do not fall under the category of inverted rated goods. Furthermore, the item of HSN 5402 which is inward supply of goods of the appellant found appearing in trading turnover as well as inverted turnover. Like-wise there was mis-match in the amount of tax payable on such inverted rated supply goods. I also noticed variation in amount of 'Total Adjusted Turnover' mentioned by the appellant at each stage of period. In appeal No.95/2021, the amount of Adjusted Total Turnover in Form GSTRFD-01 has been shown as Rs