The Madhya Pradesh High Court held that the only mode prescribed for communicating the show-cause notice is by way of uploading on the website of the revenue and not through Email.
The petitioner, Akash Garg challenged the demand of tax raised vide summary of order, the foundational show-cause notice/orders of financial year was never communicated to the petitioner who is an individual registered under GST Act.
As such on the question of violation of principle of natural justice on the anvil of Rule 142 of Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, this Court requisitioned reply of the State.
The State has filed a reply disclosing that show-cause notice/orders was communicated to the petitioner on his E-mail address and despite receiving the same the petitioner failed to file any response.
The petitioner has drawn the attention of the Court to the provision of Rule 142(1) of CGST Act to contend that the said provision statutorily obliges the revenue department to communicate show-cause notice/orders by uploading the same on the website of revenue so that the aggrieved person can have access to the same and be aware of reasons behind the demand to enable the aggrieved person to avail alternative remedy before the higher forum under CGST Act.
The division bench of Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Rajeev Kumar Shrivastava clarified that it is a trite principle of law that when a particular procedure is prescribed to perform a particular act then all other procedures/modes except the one prescribed are excluded. This principle becomes all the more stringent when statutorily prescribed as is the case herein.
The court while quashing the impugned demand held that statutory procedure prescribed for communicating show-cause notice/order under Rule 142(1) of CGST Act having not been followed by the revenue.
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