Ashirvad Food Products Private Limited Vs Additional/Joint Commissioner (Calcutta High Court)
The Calcutta High Court in the case of Ashirvad Food Products Private Limited Vs Additional/Joint Commissioner addressed a procedural hurdle where a taxpayer’s inactivated Goods and Service Tax Identification Number (GSTIN) portal prevented them from completing the appeal process under the CGST/WBGST Act, 2017. The petitioner, Ashirvad Food Products Private Limited, had filed an appeal against an order dated January 17, 2025, concerning a tax demand for the period April 2020 to March 2021, but was unable to make the mandatory pre-deposit since the payment could only be processed through their GST portal, which had an ‘inactive’ status.
The petitioner was compelled to file the appeal offline without the required pre-deposit. During the proceedings, the State’s advocate confirmed that the petitioner’s GST registration had not been cancelled, but was merely inactive. Recognizing the unusual circumstance that blocked the statutory right to appeal, the Court found that continuing to keep the writ petition pending would serve no useful purpose.
Consequently, the Court issued a specific directive to the newly added respondent, Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTIN), to activate the petitioner’s portal within a period of four weeks. To safeguard the petitioner’s rights while the technical issue was resolved, the Court stayed the original order dated January 17, 2025, for a period of six weeks, or for two weeks after the portal’s activation, whichever was later, with the caveat that the stay would not extend beyond the end of November 2025. The Court ordered that once the portal is active and the pre-deposit is made, the petitioner’s appeal must be regularized and heard on its merits. This ruling ensures that technical inactivity of a GST portal does not impede a taxpayer’s fundamental right to exhaust statutory appellate remedies.
