Joint Commissioner of GST and Central Excise Vs Titan Company Ltd (Madras High Court)
The Madras High Court disposed of the writ appeals after recording the respondent/assessee’s submission, made without prejudice to its rights and contentions, including on limitation, that it would reply to the show cause notices dated 28.09.2023. The assessee stated that replies had already been filed for some financial years and that additional replies would be filed for those years and for the remaining years within four weeks.
The Court recorded the statement that all relied-upon documents had been made available. However, for completion of the record, it directed the adjudicating authority to issue a fresh, indexed and paginated set of all documents relied upon while issuing the show cause notices, along with the enclosures. The four-week period for filing replies was directed to commence from the date of receipt of these documents by the assessee or its advocate.
The Court directed the Assessing Officer to undertake adjudication year-wise from July 2017 to March 2022, maintaining a minimum gap of four weeks between the assessment of each year. It also directed that the time lost would be excluded while calculating the overall limitation period.
The Court kept all rights and contentions open and directed that the final order be a reasoned order dealing with all submissions of the assessee. A personal hearing was to be granted with at least seven working days’ notice. If any judicial pronouncements were proposed to be relied upon, a list of such decisions was to be provided along with the hearing notice. The adjudication was directed to be completed by 31.10.2025.
