Case Law Details
Dominic David Vs State Tax Officer (Kerala High Court)
The show cause notice issued to the petitioner in this case shows that the same has been issued in Form GST Reg 31, which is the form for issuing a notice regarding suspension of registration.
The notice is absolutely vague and it is not clearly specified with any clarity, the reasons for proposing cancellation even the period for which there was alleged failure to file returns is not specified.
Therefore, the action taken by the officer by initiating proceedings in form GST REG-31 of the CGST Rules and completing the proceedings for cancellation of registration by issuing Ext.P1 order is clearly without jurisdiction. If the Officer wishes to initiate proceedings for cancellation of registration, he must issue a notice as specified in Rule 21 of the CGST Rules and in form GST REG-17 and not in form GST REG-31.
The Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court in Aggarwal Dyeing and Printing (Supra) has considered an almost identical situation. The Court considered the contents of the show cause notice issued in that case and came to the conclusion that the show cause notice was woefully inadequate inasmuch as it did not specify the reasons which compelled the Officer to initiate action for cancellation of registration.
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