The GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT), Delhi Bench has criticised departmental representatives for appearing at a hearing without checking whether they had received the respondent’s reply.
The Bench of Judicial Member Sanjay Kumar Aggarwal and Technical Member Rajiv Kapoor directed a Deputy Commissioner to appear at the next hearing and warned that senior officers could be summoned in person if the attitude continued.
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A superintendent appearing through video conference on behalf of the appellant, was asked whether he had received the respondent’s reply. According to the order, the respondent had been asked at the previous hearing to send it to an email address supplied by the appellant in the hearing’s chat box.
The superintendent told the Bench that he had not received the reply. He also said he did not know which email address he was supposed to check. Gaurav Arya, the chartered accountant appearing for the respondent, informed the Tribunal that the reply had been sent on the same day to the address provided by the appellant.
The Bench then asked Kumar to verify the position with Shubhkaran Singh, who was said to be in the same office and had appeared through video conference at the previous hearing on August 25, 2026. Singh joined the proceedings but said he did not know whether he should check a government email account or a Gmail account. The Tribunal noted that Singh himself had provided an email address in the chat box at the earlier hearing. Even after joining, he could not confirm whether the reply had been received.
The Bench observed that the departmental officers appeared to be treating its proceedings casually and were not taking the matter seriously. It directed the Deputy Commissioner to appear at the next hearing so that the proceedings could continue appropriately. It further stated that, if the same attitude was reflected in future hearings, senior officers would be called upon to appear before the Bench in person.
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