The Uttarakhand High Court has set aside a GST assessment order after finding that the issues raised by the taxpayer—including the scheduling of a personal hearing before the deadline for filing a reply to the show-cause notice—were identical to those already decided by a coordinate Bench.
The Bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari and Justice Siddhartha Sah remanded the matter to the adjudicating officer with directions to resume the proceedings from the show-cause notice stage. The Court ordered the authority to provide the taxpayer an opportunity to submit its reply and to fix the personal hearing only thereafter.
Buy Now: E-Magazine: 1000+ Landmark GST Judgments (2017–2026)
The writ petition was filed against an assessment order dated April 18, 2023, passed by the Assistant Commissioner, State Goods and Services Tax, Sector-2, Rudrapur, under Section 73 of the Goods and Services Tax Act.
Section 73 governs the determination of tax that has not been paid, has been short-paid, has been erroneously refunded, or where input tax credit has been wrongly availed or utilised for reasons other than fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts.
Rohit Arora, the counsel for the petitioner argued that the department issued a show-cause notice on January 31, 2023 and allowed it time until February 28, 2023 to submit a reply. However, the same notice fixed February 14, 2023 as the date of personal hearing—two weeks before the deadline provided for filing the written response.
The petitioner argued that this sequence rendered the adjudication procedure illegal because an effective personal hearing could not have been scheduled before the taxpayer had been given the full period specified by the department itself to place its written defence on record.
The timing of the hearing, it was submitted, deprived the petitioner of a meaningful opportunity to first respond to the allegations and then address the adjudicating authority during the personal hearing.
The petitioner also raised a grievance regarding the mode of service of the show-cause notice. It submitted that the notice was not served physically and was merely uploaded on the GST portal. Consequently, the petitioner claimed that it did not become aware of the proceedings in time.
Counsel for the petitioner relied upon the Uttarakhand High Court’s earlier judgment in WPMB No. 94 of 2025. It was submitted that the coordinate Bench had already considered an identical issue and that the present petition should therefore be disposed of on the same terms.
The State sought to distinguish the earlier judgment on the facts of the case. The Division Bench, however, examined the coordinate Bench’s ruling and concluded that the issues addressed in that decision were identical to those arising in the present proceedings.
“We find that the issues dealt with in that judgment are identical to the issues involved in the present writ petition,” the Court observed.
Accordingly, the High Court disposed of the petition in terms of the judgment delivered in WPMB No. 94 of 2025 and set aside the assessment order dated April 18, 2023.
The matter has been sent back to the adjudicating officer, who must recommence the proceedings from the stage of the show-cause notice. The officer has been directed to allow the petitioner to file its reply and thereafter schedule a personal hearing.
The High Court further directed the adjudicating officer to pass a fresh order within six weeks after following the prescribed procedure and providing the taxpayer an effective opportunity to present its case.
Membership Required to Access Case Details & Order Copy
To view the complete Case Details and Download Order Copy, you must have an active membership. Please subscribe to continue.
