Shivam Electric Corporation Vs Union of India & Ors (Himachal Pradesh High Court)
The Himachal Pradesh High Court considered a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking a direction to the tax authorities to accept manual filing of GSTR-3B for the quarter ending March 2021 with an additional claim of Input Tax Credit (ITC) amounting to ₹10,54,098.
The petitioner stated that due to an error during Financial Year 2020–21, the ITC could not be claimed in the original return for the relevant period. This error was noticed by the petitioner’s accountant in 2022 while filing the annual return in Form GSTR-9 for FY 2020–21, and the annual return was filed with the correction. However, the petitioner later became aware that the discrepancy continued in the department’s records only upon receipt of a summary show cause notice dated 23.11.2024 in Form GST DRC-01. A reply to the notice was filed on 07.01.2025. As there was no mechanism under Section 16 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 to permit manual filing of GSTR-3B with an additional ITC claim for the past period, the petitioner approached the Court seeking appropriate directions.
The petitioner submitted that allowing manual filing of the return would not cause any loss to the revenue and would not automatically impact the tax demand raised by the department. On behalf of the respondents, it was contended that the petitioner had acknowledged in the reply to the show cause notice that the ITC was not claimed due to ignorance of the shift from monthly to quarterly return filing. It was argued that the petitioner had become aware of the mistake in 2022 itself but did not take timely steps to rectify it. The respondents further pointed out that there is no statutory provision under Section 16 of the CGST Act for filing manual returns, and that an order dated 19.02.2025 had already been passed confirming a demand of ₹11,21,351 towards short payment of GST due to mismatch between GSTR-3B and GSTR-1.
