RGS Impex Pvt. Ltd. through Jinil Atulbhai Rachchh Vs State of Gujarat & Ors. (Gujarat High Court)
In the case of RGS Impex Pvt. Ltd. vs. State of Gujarat & Ors., the petitioner challenged the rejection of their GST refund appeal on the grounds of not submitting a certified copy of the refund rejection order. RGS Impex, a cotton and yarn exporter, had filed for a refund under the Inverted Tax Structure category, claiming Rs. 1.52 crore for the period between October 2017 and March 2018. However, the authorities only approved a partial refund of Rs. 96.15 lakh, prompting RGS Impex to appeal the decision under Section 107 of the GST Rules, 2017. Due to a lack of online options to file the appeal against the refund rejection order, the company manually submitted its appeal and attended several hearings, only to have the appeal dismissed in February 2023 for failure to provide a certified copy of the initial order.
RGS Impex approached the Gujarat High Court to seek the restoration of the appeal, citing amendments made in December 2022 to GST Rules 108 and 109, which deem the submission of a certified copy unnecessary when the appealed order is available on the GST common portal. The High Court acknowledged that the statutory requirement for a certified copy was insignificant when the order could be viewed digitally by the authorities. The court referred to a similar case and concluded that the rejection of the appeal based on non-submission of the certified copy was unjustified, reinforcing the need for practical application of amended rules.
