Case Law Details
Ankit Kumar Agarwal Vs Assistant Commissioner of State Tax (Calcutta High Court)
The case of Ankit Kumar Agarwal Vs Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, as heard by the Calcutta High Court, revolves around the rejection of a challenge to an adjudication order and the subsequent appeal against it. The appellant, Ankit Kumar Agarwal, contested the order dated 4th April 2024, which dismissed the challenge to the adjudication order passed on 15th December 2023. The court’s decision was to remand the matter back to the adjudicating authority for further consideration, based on the appellant’s submissions regarding the filing of the annual return in GSTR-9 for the financial year 2017-18 and the contention that the matter was revenue neutral.
The court heard arguments from both parties, represented by Mr. Agarwal for the appellant and Mr. T.M. Siddique for the State, assisted by Mr. Tanoy Chakraborty. The key issue under consideration was whether the annual return filed by the appellant in GSTR-9 could be disregarded entirely.
The appellant, through various communications, clarified to the concerned authorities that while filing GSTR-3B returns for the period from October 2017 to March 2018, they did not include both Input and Output Cess. However, they filed GSTR-1 for October 2017 without Cess but included Cess for the period from November 2017 to March 2018. The appellant also acknowledged errors in the preparation of data for GSTR-9, where they inadvertently missed certain output GST liability on account of Compensation Cess and the equivalent amount of Input tax credit. They claimed that the errors were unintentional and rectified them while filing GSTR-9.
The appellant argued that the errors did not result in any revenue loss to the government, as the exercise was revenue-neutral, and there was no intent to evade tax. Despite these submissions, the adjudicating authority maintained its stance in the order dated 15th December 2023.
Please become a Premium member. If you are already a Premium member, login here to access the full content.
Author Bio
