IGST Refund cannot be denied on account of Technical Glitches [High Court]

IGST Refund cannot be denied on account of Technical Glitches [High Court]

Facts of the case : Refund of Integrated Tax (IGST) paid on the goods exported out of India. Since the respondents did not refund the IGST amount, the Writ Petition was filed. According to the petitioner, they have claimed lower rate drawback as per Notification 131/2016(NT) , dated 31.10.2016, the petitioner having mistakenly declared in the Shipping Bills that they have availed higher drawback by selecting A instead of B; that the same is an inadvertent error; that to overcome such inadvertent errors, CBEC, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, issued a Circular No.8/2018, dated 23.03.2018 which allows the refund of IGST through an officer interface specially opened by DG (Systems), a one time exception.

The Honble High Court held as under:

Case on hand will clearly indicate that only due to inadvertence, the drawback code in the shipping bill was wrongly mentioned as 680203A instead of 680203B. Respondents do not dispute that IGST refund is payable to the petitioner but only due to the fact that Export General Manifest for the shipping bills have been closed by the computer system, it is not possible to refund the IGST amount to the petitioner. Petitioner cannot be made helpless just because the computer system does not enable them to refund the IGST amount. Being an undisputed fact that IGST refund is payable to the petitioner, the petitioner is absolutely entitled to the IGST refund from the respondents. Petitioner had never availed the option to take drawback at higher rate in place of IGST refund and, therefore, the Circular No.37/2018 dated 09.10.2018 is not applicable to the facts of the instant case -

Further, the Circular No. 37/2018 , dated 09.10.2018 issued by CBEC has also not rescinded the earlier Circular No.08/2018 , dated 23.03.2018. Settled law is that although the circular is not binding on the Court or an assessee, revenue cannot raise contention contrary to binding circular; that when a circular remains in operation, revenue is bound by it and cannot be allowed to plead that it is not valid or it is contrary to the terms of statute - Court is of the considered view that the respondents ought to have refunded the IGST amount for the aforementioned shipping bills to the petitioner within a period of eight weeks. Petition allowed.

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