2025(06)LCX0481

Allahabad High Court

Agarwal Kirana Store

Versus

Union of India

WRIT TAX No. - 2855 of 2025 decided on 12-06-2025

Neutral Citation No

Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:96502-DB

Court No. - 10

Case :- WRIT TAX No. - 2855 of 2025

Petitioner :- M/S Agarwal Kirana Store
Respondent :- Union Of India And 4 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Divyanshu Pandey,Utkarsh Malviya
Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.,C.S.C.,Saumitra Singh

Hon'ble Siddhartha Varma,J.
Hon'ble Harvir Singh,J.

1. This petition is directed against order dated 29.04.2024 passed by the Commercial Tax Officer, State Tax, Sector-6, Bareilly under Section 73(9) of the Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (for short, 'the Act').

2. Submissions have been made that the petitioner was issued notice under Section 61 of the Act intimating discrepancies in the return after scrutiny on 06.11.2023. The petitioner did not file any reply to said notice being unaware of issuance of the same, as the same was uploaded on the Portal of the Department, resulting in issuance of notice under Section 73 of the Act on 20.12.2023. In the said notice, the reply was to be filed by 20.01.2024 and date of personal hearing was indicated as NA. The petitioner filed for adjournment to the said notice, which was not considered by the respondents and the impugned order dated 29.04.2024 under Section 73(9) of the Act creating a liability of Rs. 1,28,663/-.

3. Submissions have been made that the order passed under Section 73(9) of the Act, is contrary to the requirement of Section 75(6) of the Act, wherein it is required of the adjudicating officer to set out relevant facts and basis of his decision whereas, the order impugned has been passed without indicating any reason whatsoever and on that count alone the order impugned is bad and deserves to be set aside.

4. Learned counsel for the respondents supported the order impugned. It was submitted that the petitioner was given sufficient opportunity by issuance of notices under Sections 61 and 73 of the Act, however, when it did not avail the same, the passing of the order impugned cannot be faulted.

5. We have considered the submissions made by counsel for the parties and have perused the material available on record.

6. A bare look at the order impugned dated 29.04.2024 passed under Section 73(9) of the Act reveals that the same only makes reference to issuance of two notices, the fact that they have not been responded to, and a demand has been raised.

7. The manner of passing of order dated 29.04.2024 falls foul of the requirements of Section 75(6) of the Act, which requires that 'the proper officer, in his order shall set out the relevant facts and the basis of his decision', the statutory requirements for passing an order by setting out relevant facts and basis for the decision are totally missing from the order dated 29.04.2024. Even if no response was filed to the notices issued under Sections 61 and 73 of the Act, it was incumbent on respondent no.2 to pass an order in compliance of the provisions of Section 75(6) of the Act, as a final order should be self contained and merely making reference to the previous notices while passing the said order does not suffice for making it a self contained order.

8. Consequently, the petition is allowed. The order dated 29.04.2024 (Annexure-1 to the writ petition) is quashed and set aside. The matter is remanded back to respondent no.5/Commercial Tax Officer, State Tax, Sector-6, Bareilly to provide an opportunity of filing response to the show cause notice issued under Section 73 of the Act to the petitioner, which response shall be filed within a period of four weeks from today and thereafter, after providing opportunity of hearing, a fresh order in accordance with law be passed.

9. Needless to say, personal hearing be provided to the petitioner on the date fixed by the respondents.

Order Date :- 12.6.2025

(Harvir Singh, J.) (Siddhartha Varma, J.)