THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI APARESH KUMAR SINGH AND THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.M.MOHIUDDIN WRIT PETITION No.29376 of 2025

ORDER:

Learned counsel Sri Karthik Ramana Puttamreddy appears for the petitioner.

Sri Swaroop Oorilla, learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax, appears for respondent Nos.1 to 3.

Sri K.Sanjeev, learned Standing Counsel for Central Government, appears for Union of India.

2. Heard the learned counsel for the parties.

3. The impugned order-in-original dated 02.07.2025 passed under Section 74 of the Telangana Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as, “the TGST Act”), relates to the financial year 2021-2022. The petitioner, being aggrieved, has preferred the writ petition, inter alia, taking the ground that the relied upon documents seized during inspection were not supplied by the adjudicating officer before arriving at a decision. The petitioner was denied proper opportunity of hearing. When the petitioner made a request for an adjournment, the request was not heeded to and instead, the order-in-

original was passed.

4. In support of the aforesaid submission, learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon a decision of the Division Bench of the erstwhile High Court of Andhra Pradesh in W.P.No.24954 of 2015, dated 11.08.2015, relating to a penalty order passed under the Andhra Pradesh Value Added Tax Act, 2005. He submits that on the very date on which the request for adjournment was made, the adjudicating officer ought not to have passed the final order, without giving an adequate opportunity of hearing in the teeth of the provisions of Section 75(5) of the TGST Act.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner further submits that the seized documents were not duly provided to the petitioner in Form INS-02. Apart from the above, learned counsel for the petitioner has taken a number of other grounds assailing that the impugned proceedings are motivated and without proper application of mind, a huge liability has been imposed upon the petitioner.

6. Learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax has strongly countered the submissions of the learned counsel for the petitioner. He has submitted that the claim of non-supply of the relevant documents is untenable on facts, as a mere perusal of the impugned order would indicate that the documents which the petitioner alleges to have not been supplied relate to the invoices for the financial year 2017-2018, whereas the present proceedings relate to the financial year 2021-2022. He has also referred to the previous two rounds of litigation on the same subject period.

7. Our attention has been drawn to the findings recorded by the adjudicating officer at page Nos.120 to 125 of the material papers annexed to the writ petition. According to the learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax, they demonstrate that the petitioner in the first round of litigation approached this Court on the plea that the orders and show cause notices were unsigned. The matter was remitted to the adjudicating officer. Thereafter, the petitioner once again laid challenge to the impugned proceedings on the ground that the relied upon documents were not supplied. It is submitted that after the order dated 05.03.2025 passed in W.P.Nos.17938, 17941 & 18148 of 2024 and 1005 & 1130 of 2025, the adjudicating officer has supplied the scanned copies of several such documents for the financial year 2020-2021 i.e., 1810 scanned copies through e-mail dated 15.04.2025 at the time of issuance of DRC-01A dated 11.04.2025 and also made attempts to provide the hard copies, which were denied. The scanned copies were again sent through e- mail while DRC-01 was issued on 29.04.2025. The assessee was asked to depute a person to collect the supporting material and also get soft copies of the scanned documents. The taxpayer, however, did not file any submissions in Part-B of the DRC-01A. A revised show cause notice was thereafter issued under Section 74 of the TGST Act/Central Goods and Ser