Taxpayers facing technical issues in filing form TRAN-1 are entitled to relief, recognizing tax credits as property rights protected under the Constitution, thus requiring fair treatment by revenue authorities.

ORDER

Manmohan, J. (Oral)--Present writ petition has been filed with the following prayers:

"i. To issue a writ of mandamus or a writ in the nature of mandamus or any other writ, order or direction, to direct the Respondents to open the common portal for the Petitioner to be able to file TRAN-1 electronically; or alternatively to allow the Petitioner to avail the said ITC by manually filing TRAN-1 or by furnishing the details in Form GSTR 3B or in any other manner so as to enable the Petitioner to avail the transitional credit of Rs.71,25,873/for GSTIN 07AAACT4460C2ZO, and transitional credit of Rs.27,30,375/- for the GSTIN 09AAACU0057C1ZR, in its respective electronic credit ledgers.

ii. To pass an order declaring the impugned Rules 117 to 120A of the CGST Rules, 2017 (Annexure No. P/2 (Colly)) to be ultra vires the provisions of the CGST/SGST Acts, 2017 and ultra vires the Constitution of India and to direct the respondents to allow the petitioner to avail the credit which is legally due and belongs to the petitioner;

iii. To pass an order declaring the Circular No. 39/13/2018GST dated 03.04.2018 (Annexure No. P/9) as illegal, unconstitutional and bad in law;

iv. Issue any other writ, order or direction in favour of the Petitioner, as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the present facts and circumstances of the case, so as to ensure the ends of justice, or else the Petitioner shall suffer Irreparably;

v. To grant costs of this Petition; and

vi. To award such further and other reliefs as the nature and circumstances of the case may require.

Pass such other order(s) or further orders as this Hon'ble Court deems fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case, for which act of kindness the petitioner as is duty bound shall ever pray."

2. The petitioner faced technical glitches/errors while filing the TRAN1, in respect of which he filed complaint applications dated 9th July, 2018 with the Nodal Officer and the Chief Commissioner. Likewise, another complaint dated 2nd August, 2018 was filed with the Nodal Officer, grievances cell of the GST department. These complaints were followed up with the representations dated 19th March, 2020 to the respondents.

3. Though, it is the case of the respondents that such a technical glitch/error cannot be considered as an error on the GST common portal, yet this Court in the case of "Super India Paper Products Vs. Union of India Through Ministry of Finance, Secretary & Ors.", WP(C) 1150/2020 decided on 27th may, 2021 has held as under:

"12. The first batch of cases is where the Petitioners have placed the screenshots and/or communication to support their stance of having attempted to file the TRAN-1 Form prior to the deadline i.e., 27th December, 2017.

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15. In all the aforesaid cases, all such Petitioners have genuinely attempted to file TRAN-1 Form within time and have also taken care to preserve some evidence which is now being relied upon in support of their contention. This proof of submission however has not been accepted by the Respondents. The stand of the Respondent is that in such matters there is no technical anomaly in filing of the TRAN1 Form on the GST portal. This Court in several decisions has given benefit to such taxpayers and even to those who did not have any evidence to support their filing of TRAN-1 Form within time. In SRC Aviation (P) Ltd. v. Union of India and Ors., this Court, after recording the fact that Petitioner has placed a copy of the screenshot evidencing that it was unable to file the TRAN-1 Form on the GST Portal, allowed it to file the TRAN-1 Form electronically, or manually. The relevant portion of SRC Aviation (supra) reads as under:

"9. The