P S Engineers Vs State of U.P. And Another (Allahabad High Court)
The writ petition challenged the order dated 25.02.2025 passed under Section 73(9) of the Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, through which a demand of Rs. 8,94,776 was raised in the name of Parbind Kumar Srivastava. The petition was filed by his wife, Shalini Srivastava, who stated that the proprietor had died on 25.11.2020. After his death, the GST registration of the proprietorship firm was cancelled with effect from 31.03.2021 through an order dated 12.07.2021.
Despite this, a show cause notice dated 30.11.2024 under Section 73 of the Act was issued in the name of the deceased proprietor. Since the notice was uploaded on the GST portal and the registration had already been cancelled, the petitioner stated that there was no opportunity to access the portal. Consequently, the show cause notice remained unanswered and an order dated 25.02.2025 was passed raising the tax demand against the deceased person.
The petitioner argued that the Department was aware of the death of the proprietor and the cancellation of the GST registration. Therefore, issuing a show cause notice and conducting proceedings in the name of a deceased person was void ab initio and the resulting order should be quashed.
