Noordeen Enterprises Vs Additional Director General Directorate of GST Intelligence (Madras High Court)
The Madras High Court disposed of a batch of writ petitions in which the petitioners sought directions to the GST authorities to issue “No Objection Certificates” regarding receipt of payments from customers to whom they had supplied goods. The petitioners contended that the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) had issued letters to their customers directing or influencing them to remit amounts due to the petitioners directly to the GST authorities. One such instance involved a customer, Sumangala Steel Private Limited, which remitted ₹15 lakh to the GST authorities after receiving a communication from the respondents.
The petitioners relied on an earlier order dated 04.03.2022 in a related writ petition, where the Court had held that such recovery could not have been effected under either Section 79 or Section 83 of the applicable GST enactments because the tax proposal had not crystallised into a tax liability at that stage. In that earlier case, the petitioner had been granted liberty to seek refund under Section 54 of the GST law.
The respondents, however, pointed out that the concerned petitioner had itself written to Sumangala Steel directing the customer to remit the amount to the Government GST account towards amounts payable to the petitioner. The respondents also submitted that despite being granted liberty by the earlier order, the petitioner had not filed any refund application under Section 54.
