Octantis Services Pvt Ltd Vs Union of India & Anr (Bombay High Court)
The Bombay High Court, in the case of Octantis Services Pvt Ltd Vs Union of India & Anr, granted an ad-interim stay on an impugned order dated February 27, 2025, issued by the Respondent No. 2. The petitioner challenged the order primarily on the grounds that the underlying Show Cause Notice (SCN) was served beyond the time prescribed under Section 73(2) read with Section 73(10) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (CGST Act), and that the impugned order failed to consider the petitioner’s specific submissions, including the SCN being time-barred and the applicability of the court’s previous judgment in Vodafone Idea Limited v/s The Union of India & Ors.
The court noted that the SCN for Financial Year 2020-2021 ought to have been served by November 27, 2024. The SCN was served on November 27, 2024, but the petitioner claimed it was not served on the authorized email address reflected on the GST portal. The court’s attention was drawn to Exhibit-S of the Petition, which indicated the authorized email address as [email protected]. However, the SCN on November 27, 2024, was served on [email protected].
The petitioner specifically averred that [email protected] was initially provided as the primary authorized signatory’s email ID but was amended on the GST portal on February 15, 2022. Furthermore, the petitioner showed that all subsequent correspondence with the GST Department after February 15, 2022, including the GST Audit Intimation Letter (April 18, 2023), the GST Audit Observation Letter (January 19, 2024), and the email fixing the Pre-Show Cause Notice Consultation (April 24, 2024), was addressed to the new email ID, [email protected]. The court found this material to show, at least prima facie, that the GST Department was aware that the authorized email address had changed from February 2022 onwards.
