Prism Johnson Limited Vs Union of India (Madhya Pradesh High Court)
The Hon’ble Madhya Pradesh High Court in Prism Johnson Ltd. V. Union of India [Writ Petition No. 9226 of 2020 dated June 13, 2022] held that, orders denying refund claim to the assessee for accumulated credit of Compensation Cess, where the reason of claim being time barred is absent but certain other reasons have been assigned that are sufficient to enable the assessee to know the cause for rejection of the claim for refund cannot be categorized to be non-speaking. Further, relegated the matter for avail the alternate remedy of appeal
Facts:
This petition has been filed by Prism Johnson Ltd. (“the Petitioner”) against the Show Cause Notice (“SCN”) along with consequential Orders (“the Impugned Orders”) passed by the Revenue Department (“the Respondent”) refusing claim for refund for accumulated credit of Compensation Cess, on the grounds that the refund is wrongly being denied to the Petitioner and non-speaking of the Impugned Orders. Thus, in violation of principles of natural justice.
The Respondent contended as below:
1. The Refund claim is time barred in view of Section 54(14)(2) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (“the CGST Act”).
2. No record under credit ledger for accumulated ITC of cess was available, nor was the Input Tax Credit (“ITC”) of cess availed by the Petitioner.
3. The Refund claim does not hold merit on account of Circular No. 125/44/2019-GST dated November 18, 2019, which discuss about the guidelines for claims of refund of Compensation Cess.
4. The Refund claim was wrongly made under the head of “any other” instead of “refund of unutilized ITC on account of export without payment of tax”.
5. Maintainability of the petition is untenable as the Petitioner did not exhaust the statutory remedy of appeal available under Section 107(1) of the CGST Act.
Issues:
