AGN Lorry Service Vs Commercial Tax Officer (Madras High Court)
Madras High Court held that cancellation of GST registration for non-compliance with relevant provision of GST Act not justified since the reason of slowdown in business is genuine. Accordingly, restoration of GST registration ordered.
Facts- The Petitioner is a registered tax payer under the GST enactments and they have been filing the GST returns regularly upto financial year 2022-23, however, due to cancellation of certain major orders during 2023, the Petitioner could not file its returns from April 2023 onwards. Consequently, the respondent issued a show cause notice on 11.10.2023, proposing the cancellation of the GST registration for non-filing of returns for a continuous period of six months, and subsequently passed an order of cancellation on 12.04.2024.
Petitioner mainly contested that since the show cause was uploaded in the GST portal, without serving physical copy of the same to the petitioner, the petitioner was not aware of the same and hence could not file its reply, which resulted in passing of the impugned order.
Conclusion- Held that the GST registration of the petitioner was cancelled due to non-compliance in filing returns. Furthermore, the time limit for filing an application for revocation of the cancellation and also for filing statutory appeal against the cancellation order had also expired, and the petitioner stated that due to slowdown in the business of the Petitioner, they could not pay GST dues and file the returns. Therefore, this Court is of the view that the reason provided by the petitioner for non-compliance with the relevant provisions of the Act within the stipulated time appears to be genuine.
