Principal Chief Commissioner of GST and Central Excise Vs Deepa Traders (Madras High Court)
Summary: The Madras High Court dismissed the Revenue’s appeal against the order of the learned Single Judge permitting Deepa Traders to rectify inadvertent errors in its GSTR-1 returns for the financial year 2017-18. The Court also directed that there would be no order as to costs and disposed of the connected CMP. The applications seeking condonation of 86 days’ delay in filing the appeal and 540 days’ delay in payment of deficit Court fees had already been allowed.
The dispute arose from errors admittedly committed by Deepa Traders in returns for certain months during FY 2017-18. The errors included incorrect mention of recipients’ GSTIN/name, incorrect invoice numbers/dates, omission of certain invoice-wise details in GSTR-1 despite the supply details having been correctly reported in GSTR-3B and tax having been duly remitted, and inadvertent payment of IGST under the CGST and SGST heads. According to the petitioner, the errors resulted from inadvertent carelessness of a part-time accountant during the initial period of GST implementation, when the procedures and system were new.
The errors came to the petitioner’s notice in December 2019 after customers brought them to its attention. The petitioner stated that it immediately attempted to rectify the returns but found that there was no mechanism under the Act or on the GST portal for making the required corrections. It also stated that the tax liability had been fully discharged on the turnover reported and that the requested correction was intended to enable proper reconciliation of its returns and annexures with those of third parties. The Revenue did not dispute the sequence of events before the learned Single Judge.
