Tamilnadu State Transport Corporation (Villupuram) Limited Vs Additional Commissioner of Central Tax (Madras High Court)
Madras High Court has quashed a demand for interest and penalties levied by the Additional Commissioner of Central Tax against the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (Villupuram) Limited. The ruling, delivered in a writ petition challenging an order dated December 30, 2023, centered on the delay in filing Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns due to technical issues and digital signature problems.
The transport corporation, through its counsel, informed the court that despite the implementation of GST on July 1, 2017, they faced significant technical hurdles in uploading their GSTR 3B returns for the period from July 2017 to March 2018. The primary issue cited was the GST portal’s inability to support the digital signature of the petitioner’s Managing Director. This problem was reportedly communicated to the Commercial Tax Officer, Villupuram, through monthly letters and a ticket raised on the GST portal, but no resolution was provided by the department.
Despite these technical difficulties, the petitioner asserted that they consistently discharged their output tax liability by depositing the exact tax amount into their Electronic Cash Ledger, without adjusting any input tax credit.
The technical issues persisted, according to the petitioner, from April 2018 until July 2019. During this subsequent period, the problem was exacerbated by the retirement of the then-Managing Director and the new incumbent’s digital signature also not being supported by the GST portal. Even in this phase, the corporation maintained that it continued to deposit the exact tax liability into its Electronic Cash Ledger, even in the absence of timely GSTR 3B filings.
