Superb Galaxy Vs Commissioner of DGST & Ors. (Delhi High Court)
Delhi High Court has set aside an ex-parte order passed under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law against Superb Galaxy for the financial year 2019-20. The court found that the order was passed without affording the petitioner a proper opportunity to file a reply to the show cause notice (SCN) and be heard, deeming the resulting order non-speaking and cryptic. The High Court has granted the petitioner additional time to file its reply and directed the tax authorities to conduct a fresh adjudication after providing a personal hearing.
Superb Galaxy had filed a writ petition challenging the SCN dated May 28, 2024, and the consequential order dated August 24, 2024, issued by the Delhi GST Department. A significant part of the petition also involved challenging the validity of several notifications that extended statutory time limits for assessment and adjudication proceedings under Section 168A of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017, and parallel provisions under the State GST Act. These included Central GST Notifications No. 56/2023 and No. 9/2023, and Delhi State Notifications No. 56/2023 and No. 9/2023.
The court noted that the validity of the Central Notifications was a contentious issue being litigated across various High Courts and was currently under consideration in a large batch of petitions before the Delhi High Court, led by the case of W.P.(C) 16499/2023 titled DJST Traders Pvt. Ltd. vs. Union of India and Ors. In a previous order dated April 22, 2025, in that batch, the court had recorded the primary ground of challenge: that Section 168A mandates a prior recommendation of the GST Council for extending deadlines, and the notifications, particularly Notification No. 56/2023-Central Tax, allegedly lacked such prior recommendation, with ratification potentially obtained only subsequently.
