Ram Sales LLP Vs State of Bihar (Patna High Court)
The Patna High Court considered a writ petition challenging the order dated 24.04.2024 and the summary order in Form GST DRC-07 passed under Section 73 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 read with the Bihar Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, the consequential letter dated 23.01.2025, and the proposed recovery proceedings under Section 79. The petitioner also sought declarations that the demand of tax, interest and penalty had been raised only because of a typographical error involving insertion of the digit “9” in the taxable supplies disclosed in the GSTR-3B return for December 2018, despite the annual return in Form GSTR-9 and reconciliation statement in Form GSTR-9C for FY 2018-19 having been filed and not rejected, and that these documents available on the GST portal had not been considered while passing the impugned order.
The respondents contended that the petitioner had an effective alternative remedy by filing an appeal before the Appellate Authority. The petitioner submitted that although he could have approached the Appellate Authority, he had not been properly served with the show cause notice or subsequent reminders, and mere uploading of notices on the GST portal could not be treated as sufficient communication since a taxpayer could not be expected to check the portal every day.
