Jyoti Agro Vs Deputy Commissioner of State Tax (Gujarat High Court)
The writ petition was filed seeking refund of Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) amounting to ₹25,09,124 arising from zero-rated supplies, along with consequential reliefs. The petitioner had initially filed a refund application in Form GST RFD-01 on 24.06.2022 under Section 54(3) of the CGST Act, 2017 for accumulated Input Tax Credit (ITC) for the period October 2021 to May 2022. While complying with Circular No. 125/44/2019-GST dated 18.11.2019, the petitioner could not upload shipping bills on the GST portal due to size constraints and attempted to submit hard copies, which were not accepted by the authorities.
A show cause notice in Form GST RFD-08 was issued on 27.07.2022, seeking proper documentation. The petitioner responded through Form GST RFD-09 on 12.08.2022, electronically submitting the required shipping bills. However, the refund was rejected by an order dated 04.09.2022 in Form GST RFD-06 on the ground of improper signing of the declaration. No statutory appeal was filed, and the debited amount was re-credited through Form GST PMT-03 on 14.11.2022.
Subsequent attempts to file a fresh refund application for the same period were blocked by the GST portal, citing that an application for the period had already been filed. Grievances raised with the GST Helpdesk were rejected on the ground that a fresh application for the same period was not permissible. Thereafter, the petitioner filed a refund application under the category “Any Other” on 02.01.2023, along with supporting documents. This application was met with a deficiency memo in Form GST RFD-03 dated 19.01.2023, alleging non-compliance with Rule 89(5) of the CGST Rules and absence of debit from the electronic credit ledger.
