Delhi Govt releases Grievance redressal mechanism for pending refunds of GST & DVAT

The Government of NCT of Delhi vide Circular No.F.3(433)/GST/Policy/2022/1268-77 Dated 13.05.2022 releases Grievance redressal mechanism for pending refunds of GST & DVAT.

The Circular is Given Below:

1. In terms of the Section 38 of the DVAT Act, 2004 and the rules made there under, the refund applications are required to be disposed within a stipulated period of 2 months.

2. Similarly, under Section 54 of the DOST Act, 2017, taxpayer can claim the refund of any payment and interest before the expiry of two years from the relevant date. The proper officer shall issue the order within sixty days from the date of receipt of application, else interest at the rate not exceeding 6% shall be payable on such refund application.

3. It has been observed that many refund cases are still pending in the Wards beyond the permissible time limit. In this regard Department has been issuing Circulars from time to time for disposal of the refund application in a time bound manner. Some of the taxpayers have also approached the Hon’ble High Court with their grievances and the Hon’ble Court has highlighted the need to decide the applications within statutory timelines. It is therefore incumbent upon the concerned officers to ensure that the refund applications are disposed strictly in accordance with the statutory timelines. A circular regarding time bound disposal of GST refunds has again been issued on 04.05.0222 which needs to be complied with strictly. Similarly the pending VAT refund applications which may have remained pending due to various reasons, have to be disposed in a mission mode.

4. In order to further streamline the process of disposal of refund applications and to provide a platform for the dealers/taxpayers to register their grievances related to the pending refund applications, a mechanism is being put in place, wherein. such dealers/taxpayers can file their grievances with the department through the DVAT Portal by filling a simple Refund Grievances Redressal Form. Grievances received on the refund grievances redressal form shall be handled as per the process laid down as under:

(i) The dealer will submit an application in the Refund Grievances Form, which is available on the home page of DVAT Portal of https://dvat.gov.ln/GrievanceForms/Grievance-page.html.

(ii) EDP Branch will forward the details to the concerned Ward and Zonal incharge on the same day.

(iii) The Ward in-charge will dispose of the application on merit within 10 working days of receiving the information.

(iv) Zonal incharges will supervise the progress of disposal on daily basis and furnish an action taken report to the EDP Branch on weekly basis in the following:

(v) Special Commissioner-I, shall be the Nodal Officer for monitoring the disposal of grievances in time bound manner and may issue necessary direction to the Zonal as well as Ward incharges wherever required. EDP Branch will submit a consolidated report to the Special Commissioner -I every week. Special Commissioner-I will submit a weekly report to Commissioner every Monday regarding cases which continue to remain pending even after the lapse of 10 days despite his directions to the Zone/ward.

(vi) In case the ward officer doesn’t report compliance to the nodal officer within 10 days, the nodal officer will bring it to the notice of the zonal incharge for appropriate entry in the AP AR of the responsible officer.

6) EDP branch shall inform about this facility to the registered taxpayers by SMS and email.

This issues with the approval of Commissioner, State Tax.