Union of India & Anr. Vs BT(India) Private Limited (Supreme Court of India)
The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Union of India & Anr. v. BT (India) Private Limited [Diary No.44385-2024 XIV dated December 09, 2024] dismissed the Special Leave Petition (“SLP”) filed by the Revenue Department (“the Petitioner”) after a delay of 229 days. The SLP was against the Delhi High Court Judgment which permitted the refund of CENVAT credit under Rule 5 of the CENVAT Credit Rules, 2024 (“the CCR”) to M/s BT India (Private) Limited (“the Respondent”) and held that finalised assessment cannot be reopened in refund proceedings absent any challenge to self-assessed returns.
The Respondent had filed 3 refund applications for three quarters within the specified date i.e. September 29, 2015, December 23, 2015 and March 29, 2016 respectively. The Petitioner, after a lapse of more than 3 years, issued a deficiency memo in 2019 in respect of which the Respondent submitted the documents as and when sought for. However, without issuance of any formal Show Cause Notice (“SCN”), the refund applications of the Respondent were rejected on the following grounds:
A. documents those establish the genuineness of the GST refund claims were not submitted and
B. Assessee qualified as an intermediary.
The Respondent contended that failure of the Petitioner to challenge self-assessed returns under Section 70 of Finance Act, 1994 signifies that the assessments had reached finality while relying upon judgment of Input Tax Credit (“ITC”) claiming it to be squarely applicable in context of service tax laws as well.
