Madras High Court Condones Delay in GST Appeal Subject to Payment of Additional Deposit

The Madras High Court, in one of its recent judgements, granted relief to the petitioner by allowing them to file a delayed GST appeal on an extra deposit payment. The case was heard by Justice Krishnan Ramasamy.

The petitioner received a show cause notice dated 26.09.2023 from the GST Department. The SCN was uploaded on the GST portal, and the petitioner’s consultant, who was handling their GST-related work, failed to follow up on the proceedings, which resulted in passing an ex parte order dated 26.09.2023 from the GST department, which was also uploaded on the GST portal.

The petitioner filed an appeal before the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, but since the company filed the appeal with a 55-day delay, the same was dismissed. Therefore, the petitioner approached the Madras High Court, requesting the court to condone the delay and quash the order dated 26.09.2023.

The court observed that the petitioner submitted that they were unaware of the notice and order, as the same was uploaded online and no physical copy was served to them. It was also noted that even the petitioner’s consultant failed to do the same, due to which the petitioner filed a delayed appeal.

The petitioner also came forward to pay extra tax, saying that they had already deposited 10% of the statutory deposit while filing an appeal. If the court condones the delay, the petitioner would deposit the extra 5% of the disputed tax before the appellate authority.

The court believed that the reason for the delay in filing was genuine and hence, the court set aside the order dated 23.09.2024 and condoned the delay of 55 days in filing the Appeal before the appellate authority. But the court gave a few conditions, requiring the petitioner to pay an extra deposit of 5% of the disputed tax over the statutory deposit of 10%.

The court directed the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes to accept the appeal if the petitioner makes such a payment and decide the case on its merits after hearing the petitioner’s side.