Sugandha Enterprises Vs Commissioner of DGST & Ors. (Delhi High Court)
In Sugandha Enterprises v. Commissioner of DGST & Ors. (Delhi High Court, 2025), the petitioner, Devender Kumar Singh, challenged a show cause notice (SCN) dated 23 May 2024 and a consequent order dated 30 July 2024 passed under Section 73 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (CGST Act). The petitioner also contested several Central and State GST notifications — Nos. 9/2023 and 56/2023 — issued under Section 168A of the CGST Act, which extended the limitation period for adjudicating tax proceedings for FY 2019–20.
The petitioner argued that the order was passed ex parte without providing an opportunity to respond to the SCN, thereby violating the principles of natural justice. Furthermore, the petitioner questioned the validity of the impugned notifications on the grounds that they were not issued in accordance with the statutory requirement of prior recommendation from the GST Council under Section 168A of the CGST Act.
The High Court noted that this case was part of a batch of petitions challenging similar GST notifications. In earlier proceedings (DJST Traders Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India), the Delhi High Court had observed that the challenge primarily concerned whether the Central and State governments had lawfully exercised powers under Section 168A to extend the limitation for issuance of SCNs and adjudication orders. It was argued that while Notification No. 9/2023 had received prior recommendation from the GST Council, Notification No. 56/2023 was issued and later ratified retrospectively, raising questions of procedural irregularity.
