Valmet Flow Control Pvt. Ltd. Vs Union of India (Bombay High Court)
The case concerns a writ petition filed before the Bombay High Court challenging an order dated 3 April 2025 passed by the Assistant Commissioner, CGST and Central Excise, Thane Rural. The impugned order rejected the petitioner’s refund claim of ₹1,10,52,474 for August 2022 on the ground that the petitioner had already filed a prior refund application covering the period July 2022 to September 2022, which had been sanctioned. The authority held that a second refund application for a period already covered within the earlier application was not maintainable.
The rejection was not based on limitation, as it was undisputed that the refund application filed on 9 August 2024 was within the prescribed two-year period under Section 54(1) of the CGST Act, 2017. Instead, the rejection relied on CBIC circulars and instructions, stating that once a refund for a tax period had been claimed and processed, a subsequent claim for a part of that period was not permissible.
The petitioner contended that Section 54(1) does not impose any restriction on filing multiple refund applications, particularly where an earlier application omitted certain invoices due to inadvertence. It was argued that the absence of a statutory bar makes the second application maintainable and that the rejection was based on an incorrect interpretation of the law.
