Laxmi Jewellery Chennai Private Limited Vs Deputy Commissioner (GST) (Madras High Court)
The Madras High Court disposed of a writ petition filed by the petitioner challenging the order dated 26.04.2024 relating to the GST assessment for the tax period 2018–2019. The order in question had been issued following several notices, including one in Form DRC-01 dated 22.12.2023, pointing out about twelve discrepancies in the petitioner’s GST returns. One of these discrepancies, identified as Discrepancy No. 2, concerned a negative difference in tax between Tables 8-A and 8-B of the petitioner’s GSTR-9 return.
As recorded in the order, the discrepancy involved the reporting of input tax credit (ITC). The taxpayer had stated that during the relevant year, ITC of ₹12,03,91,433 was availed as per the audited financial statements. However, in the GSTR-9C annual return, ITC was incorrectly reported as ₹12,44,48,471, which was claimed to be a mere clerical error. The adjudicating authority noted that the petitioner failed to produce the input register to verify the genuineness of this claim and, therefore, confirmed the proposed demand.
During the hearing, the petitioner’s counsel submitted that the disputed amount had already been recovered from the petitioner on 23.10.2024 and 20.03.2025 towards SGST liability. The learned Additional Government Pleader appearing for the respondents also confirmed this position by referring to the relevant pages of the case records.
