Amidc Automation Technologies Pvt. Ltd Vs Central Board of Indirect Taxes And Customs (Karnataka High Court)
In this petition, the petitioner sought quashing of an order dated 21.02.2025 issued in Form GST-RFD-06 and requested a direction to accept its refund application in Form GST-RFD-01 for the period January 2019 to March 2022, filed within the due date, and to grant refund with applicable interest without applying limitation or jurisdictional objections. The petitioner’s first refund application was filed on 09.05.2023 for January 2019 to March 2021, which led to a deficiency memo on 01.06.2023 directing rectification before the proper jurisdictional authority. A second application dated 04.08.2023 for the same period resulted in another deficiency memo without specific reasons. A further application filed on 28.02.2024 for January 2019 to March 2022 was withdrawn and re-filed on 16.04.2024, followed by another deficiency memo dated 30.04.2024 citing incomplete documents. The petitioner then filed applications on 10.06.2024 and finally on 16.01.2025, which resulted in a show-cause notice dated 12.02.2025 proposing rejection as time-barred and the petitioner’s reply dated 18.02.2025. The impugned order dated 20.02.2025 rejected the claim as barred by limitation.
The refund authority held that the application filed on 16.01.2025 for January 2019 to March 2022 under Section 77 of the CGST Act read with Rule 89(1A) was time-barred because the refund should have been filed within two years from the date the Rule came into force on 24.09.2021, i.e., by 23.09.2023. The authority also referred to Notification No. 13/2022 dated 05.07.2022 excluding March 2020 to February 2022 for limitation, concluding that even with this exclusion, the time limit extended only until February 2024. Since the claim was filed on 16.01.2025, it was treated as beyond time. The authority rejected the petitioner’s contention regarding jurisdictional issues and stated that the petitioner should have referred to Trade Notice No. 01/2017 for jurisdictional clarity.
