Case Law Details
Atibir Industries Co. Ltd. Vs The Union of India (Jharkhand High Court)
Conclusion: On discovering of technical glitches faced by assessee-company, GST Authority was directed either to open GSTN portal enabling assessee to file its application for refund in GST RFD-01 or to manually accept the application for refund pertaining to the period 2017-18 and 2018-19 in respect of its claim for refund of unutilized Input Tax Credit pertaining to compensation cess for the financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19 within a period of 15 days from such communication.
Held: Assessee was the manufacturer of Sponge Iron regularly exports goods outside the country without payment of export duty in terms of “Letter of Undertaking” issued in favour of assessee by the competent authority. By virtue of the Circular dated 31st December 2018, it was clarified by CBIC that compensation cess can be claimed as ITC and unutilized compensation cess can be claimed as refund, assessee, on 4th March 2019, logged in on GSTN Portal for claiming refund by filing statutory Form GST RFD- 01 towards unutilized ITC at the hands of assessee on account of compensation cess for the financial year 2017-18. When assessee logged in on GSTN Portal and filed GST RFD-01 Form for refund, even the claim of refund of assessee was computed in terms of Section 54(3) of the CGST/SGST Act, 2017 read with Rule 89 of the CGST/SGST Rules and a sum was determined as refundable to assessee for the financial year 2017-18 and assessee had stated that refund application in GST RFD-01 Form could not be submitted online by assessee on GSTN Portal, as the option of ‘Save’, ‘Review’ and ‘Submit’ as occurring on GSTN Portal did not get “Active”. When assessee was unable to upload its application, it on the same day itself, made a complaint in the Helpdesk of GSTN Portal and was allotted Ticket Number. In spite of allocation of said Ticket Number, no response was received by assessee from the Helpdesk intimating the reason as to why the application for refund for the financial year 2017-18 was not being accepted on GSTN Portal. The grievance of assessee was that on one hand the application for refund of assessee for the financial year 2017-18 was not being accepted on GSTN Portal due to technical glitches and, on the other hand, even subsequent application for the period 2018-19 was not being accepted on GSTN Portal with a message directing assessee to first file application for refund for the period 2017-18. It also claimed that while filing application for refund for the period 2018-19, assessee could have also claimed the amount of unutilized ITC towards compensation cess as refund pertaining to the financial year 2017-18, as the same was within the period of limitation, but assessee was even prevented from doing so on the GSTN Portal in view of the message that assessee was first required to submit its application for refund for the financial year 2017-18. It was held that the officer was directed either to open GSTN portal enabling assessee to file its application for refund in GST RFD-01 or to manually accept the application for refund pertaining to the period 2017-18 and 2018-19 in respect of its claim for refund of unutilized Input Tax Credit pertaining to compensation cess within a period of one month from the date of communication of this judgement. The officers were directed to communicate assessee through e-mail as to whether they would open the GSTN portal or would accept the refund applications manually and upon such communication, assessee would be entitled to avail of the opportunity to file applications for refund of compensation cess for the financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19 within a period of 15 days from such communication.
FULL TEXT OF THE HIGH COURT ORDER /JUDGEMENT
1. Heard Mr. Sumeet Gadodia, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner.
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