Kent Cables Pvt. Ltd. Vs State of U.P. And 2 Others (Allahabad High Court)
The Allahabad High Court has ruled in favor of Kent Cables Pvt. Ltd., holding that a single E-Way Bill can be considered valid for the transport of goods covered by multiple invoices. The court emphasized that the primary purpose of an E-Way Bill is to track the movement of goods and prevent tax evasion. It concluded that minor technical or human errors, such as generating one E-Way Bill for several invoices, should not be a basis for penalizing a dealer, particularly when there is no evidence of an intent to evade tax.
The case arose when a truck transporting electronic goods and cables from Delhi to Sultanpur, on behalf of Kent Cables, was intercepted. The goods were accompanied by four tax invoices but only one E-Way Bill. The tax authorities seized the goods and imposed a penalty, arguing that a separate E-Way Bill should have been generated for each invoice, as required by Rule 138A of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Rules. An additional discrepancy noted by the authorities was that the invoices had different dates (one dated August 20, 2018, and three dated August 21, 2018), while the single E-Way Bill was dated August 22, 2018.
