R. M. Services Vs Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Karnataka High Court)
The petitioner challenged the order cancelling its GST registration and sought quashing of the cancellation order, revocation of the cancelled GSTIN, and any other appropriate relief. The core issue was that the GST registration was cancelled without fixing a specific date and time for a personal hearing after issuing the show-cause notice.
The petitioner argued that this issue had already been conclusively decided by a Coordinate Bench, which held that cancellation of GST registration without providing a clear opportunity of personal hearing violates the proviso to Section 29(2) of the Karnataka GST Act. In that earlier decision, the court observed that the show-cause notice did not specify a date for hearing, and the cancellation order lacked details indicating whether a personal hearing was actually granted. The court emphasized that the statutory mandate requires authorities to explicitly specify the date and time of personal hearing before cancelling any registration and held that the failure to do so rendered the cancellation unsustainable. The matter in that case was remitted for fresh consideration from the stage following issuance of the notice.
Since the present matter involved the same issue and the State did not dispute the applicability of the earlier ruling, the Court held itself bound by the Coordinate Bench’s reasoning. Consequently, the petition was allowed on the same terms, and the cancellation of GST registration was set aside in line with the earlier judgment.
