The Gujarat High Court made the scathing remarks against the department for not implementing the judgement to allow filing of Form Trans 1 for claiming transitional credit.
The division bench of Justice J.B.Pardiwala and Justice Vaibhavi D.Nanavati said, “We are disturbed by the fact that it has been more than two years but our directions have not been complied with. All that is required to be done is to open the portal and allow the original writ applicants to file declaration in Form GST TRAN 1 and GST TRAN 2 so as to enable them to claim the transitional credit of the eligible duties in respect of the inputs held in stock on the appointed day in terms of Section 140(3) of the Act.”
The main common judgment was delivered by the Court dated 06.09.2019 allowing all the captioned writ applications wherein the court directed the directed the respondents to permit the writ applicants to allow filing of declaration in form GST TRAN-1 and GST TRAN-2 so as to enable them to claim transitional credit of the eligible duties in respect of the inputs held in stock on the appointed day in terms of Section 140(3) of the Act. It is further declared that the due date contemplated under Rule 117 of the CGST Rules for the purposes of claiming transitional credit is procedural in nature and thus should not be construed as a mandatory provision.
Mr. Utkarsh Sharma, the standing counsel appearing on behalf of the respondents pointed out that the Union of India has also preferred to review applications against the very same judgment we are talking about i.e. the judgment delivered in the main matter dated 06.09.2019. Those review applications came to be dismissed for non prosecution. According to Mr. Sharma, thereafter restoration applications came to be filed and those are pending as on date with the Registry.
Mr. Shraff, the learned counsel appearing for the applicants, M/s Siddharth Enterprise pointed out that the judgment delivered by this Court, the review of which is sought for now at the instance of the Union of India, has been referred to and relied upon by many High Courts in the Country and the judgments of the other High Courts challenged by the Union of India before the Supreme Court have been affirmed. In other words, the SLPs came to be dismissed.
The court said that it was expected of the authority concerned to abide by the directions issued by this Court. Two years have elapsed but till this date, the directions issued by this Court have not been given effect to.
Subscribe Taxscan Premium to view the JudgmentSupport our journalism by subscribing to Taxscan AdFree. Follow us on Telegram for quick updates.
