A Division Bench of the Telangana High Court recently overturned a GST Demand Order dated 30.12.2023 under the Telangana Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.
The petitioner, represented by Kailash Nath challenged the order on the grounds of duplication of proceedings, citing a previous Order-in-Original issued by respondent No.4 on 31.10.2023, which is already under challenge in another case.
During the proceedings, Swaroop Oorilla, Special Government Pleader for State Tax, and Dominic Fernandez, Senior Standing Counsel for CBIC, presented arguments alongside the petitioner’s counsel.
Special Government Pleader for State Tax entered appearance and submitted that there appears to be lack of information to the State Authorities being provided from the petitioner side in respect of the Order-in-Original passed by respondent No.4.
He further submitted that there also appears to be no timely information provided by the petitioner in respect of the order passed by respondent No.4 before the impugned order was passed. Therefore, the impugned order has been passed.
The court noted a lack of timely information provided to the State Authorities regarding the previous order, as well as the non-upload of the Central Authority’s order as mandated by Circular No.4 of 2023.
It was noted, “Considering the provisions of Section 6 of CGST Act, what is apparently evident is that once when the proceedings have already been drawn and finalized on the same set of facts and issue, there cannot be subsequent proceedings again drawn.”
Relying on Section 6 of the CGST Act, Justice P Sam Koshy and Justice N Tukaramji of the Telangana High Court concluded that initiating subsequent proceedings on the same facts and issues was impermissible.
It was observed that the State Authorities’ grounds for initiating the demand order were not sustainable, citing the petitioner’s efforts to inform the authorities and the awareness reflected in the pleadings.
As a result, the Telangana High Court quashed the impugned Demand Order dated 30.12.2023, against the petitioner in this GST dispute.
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