Bhagavathi Granites Vs Superintendent of Central Tax (Telangana High Court)
Telangana High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed by Bhagavathi Granites against the Superintendent of Central Tax, challenging a bank attachment order. The petitioner argued that the attachment was invalid because the Goods and Services Tax (GST) order-in-original, dated January 6, 2022, was defective due to the alleged non-furnishing of the DRC-07 form prior to its issuance. However, the court found this argument insufficient to warrant interference, particularly since the order-in-original itself had not been appealed.
The core of the petitioner’s argument rested on the claim that the DRC-07 form, which details the demand for tax, interest, and penalty, was only issued on September 24, 2024, long after the order-in-original. This, they contended, rendered the foundational order, and by extension the bank attachment, inherently flawed and subject to intervention without a direct challenge to the order-in-original. However, the respondents, represented by Ms. Pravalika, counsel for CBIC, countered this by producing evidence that the DRC-07 was in fact uploaded to the GST portal on June 27, 2023.
The High Court articulated three reasons for rejecting the petitioner’s stance. Firstly, the factual dispute regarding the DRC-07’s upload date, with the respondents providing evidence of an earlier upload. Secondly, and critically, the court reiterated a well-established legal principle: even an order considered “bad in law” or “voidable” must be challenged in appropriate legal proceedings. A litigant cannot unilaterally declare an order invalid and disregard its consequences. The court emphasized that the bank attachment directly stemmed from the order-in-original, making a challenge to the latter a prerequisite for questioning the former.
