Assessee allowed to rectify its GST Returns after the deadline

Shiva Jyoti Construction Vs The Chairperson, Central Board of Excise & Customs and others (Orissa High Court)

The Hon’ble Orissa High Court in the matter of M/s. Shiva Jyoti Construction v. The Chairperson, Central Board of Excise & Customs and others [W.P. (C) No. 18216 of 2017 dated January 12, 2023] permitted the assessee to rectify its Goods and Services Tax (“GST”) Returns filed for the months of September 2017 and March 2018, in order to claim Input Tax Credit (“ITC”) benefit by the recipient, wherein B2C was erroneously mentioned, instead of B2B. Held that, the assessee will be unnecessarily prejudiced if it is not allowed to avail the benefits of ITC.

Facts:

M/s Shiva Jyoti Construction (“the Petitioner”) has filed this petition seeking to permit them to rectify the GST Return filed for the months of September 2017 and March 2018, wherein the Petitioner had wrongly mentioned B2C instead of B2B while filing Form GSTR-1 due to which the recipient was unable to avail the ITC. The Petitioner was unaware of such error until January 21, 2020.

Thereafter, the Petitioner had made requests to the Revenue Department (“the Respondent”) to allow it to rectify the Form GSTR-1. The Respondent rejected the request of the Petitioner vide letters of rejection dated June 19, 2020 and September 23, 2020 (“the Impugned Letters”), on the ground that the last date of filing the return was March 31, 2019 and the last date of carrying out such rectification was April 13, 2019. Thus, the deadline for the rectification of errors in Form GSTR-1 had crossed.

Issue:

Whether the Petitioner can be allowed to make rectifications in its Form GSTR-1 after the deadline for rectification of errors had crossed?

Held:

The Hon’ble Orissa High Court in W.P. (C) No. 18216 of 2017:

• Observed that, no loss would be caused to the Respondent by allowing the Petitioner to make the rectifications and that, the Petitioner will be unnecessarily prejudiced if it is not allowed to avail the benefits of ITC.
• Relied on the judgment of the Hon’ble Madras High Court in the matter of  M/s. Sun Dye Chem v. the Assistant Commissioner (ST) [Writ Petition No.29676 of 2019 dated October 6, 2020]wherein, the Court allowed the assessee to rectify and correct its Form GSTR-1 for the Period August 2017 to December 2017 and redistribute the ITC available and directed the Revenue Department to enable amendment in Form GSTR-1.
• Set aside the Impugned Letters.
• Permitted the Petitioner to resubmit the corrected Form GSTR-1.
• Directed the Respondents to receive the forms manually and facilitate the uploading of details in the web portal within a period of four weeks.

FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF ORISSA HIGH COURT

1. The Petitioner before this Court seeks a direction to the Opposite Parties to permit the Petitioner to rectify the GST Return filed for the period September, 2017 and March 2018 in Form-B2B instead of B2C as was wrongly filed under GSTR-1 in order to get the Input Tax Credit (ITC) benefit by M/s. Odisha Construction Corporation Limited (OCCL), the principal contractor.

2. Admittedly, the last date of filing the return was 31^st March, 2019 and the date by which the rectification should have been carried out was 13^th April, 2019.

3. It is the case of the Petitioner that the error came to be noticed after the OCCL held up the legitimate running bill amount of the Petitioner by informing it about the above error on 21^st January, 2020. It is the case of the Petitioner that thereafter it has been making requests to the Opposite Parties to permit it to correct the GSTR-1 Forms but to no avail.

4. The stand taken by the Opposite Parties is that once the deadline for rectification of the Forms was crossed, then no further indulgence could be granted to the Petitioner.

5. The fact remains that by permitting the Petitioner to rectify the above error, there will be no loss whatsoever caused to the Opposite Parties. It is not as if that there will be any escapement of tax. This is only about the ITC benefit which in any event has to be given to the Petitioner. On the contrary, if it is not permitted, then the Petitioner will unnecessarily be prejudiced.

6. In similar circumstances, the Madras High Court in its order dated 6^th October, 2020 in Writ Petition No.29676 of 2019 (M/s. SUN DYE CHEM v. The Assistant Commissioner ST) accepted the plea of the Petitioner and directed that the Petitioner in that case should be permitted to file the corrected form.

7. For the aforementioned reasons, the letters of rejection dated 19^th June and 23^rd September, 2020 are hereby set aside. The Court permits the Petitioner to resubmit the corrected Form-B2B under GSTR-1 for the aforementioned periods September, 2017 and March, 2018 and to enable the Petitioner to do so a direction is issued to the Opposite Parties to receive it manually. Once the corrected Forms are received manually, the Department will facilitate the uploading of those details in the web portal. The directions be carried out within a period of four weeks.

8. The writ petition is disposed of with the above directions.

9. An urgent certified copy of this order be issued as per rules.

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