Delhi High Court Upholds GST Adjudication Despite SCN Being Signed By One Officer & Reflected On Portal Under Another Officer's Name
The Delhi High Court has upheld the adjudication process in a matter involving validity of a Show Cause Notice which was signed by an Officer, but portal reflected the same under the name of another Officer. A Division Bench comprising Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Justice Shail Jain relegated the Petitioner to avail remedy of appeal against order passed by the Joint Commissioner,...
The Delhi High Court has upheld the adjudication process in a matter involving validity of a Show Cause Notice which was signed by an Officer, but portal reflected the same under the name of another Officer.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Justice Shail Jain relegated the Petitioner to avail remedy of appeal against order passed by the Joint Commissioner, Delhi (South), CGST before the Commissioner (Appeals), Gurugram. The Delhi High Court observed that when there were multiple parties involved and Show Cause Notices have to be adjudicated, the Adjudicating Authority was fixed on the basis of the jurisdiction which has the highest tax demand.
Petitioner's firm was found to be part of a chain linked to fake firms run by Gagan Kumar, issuing invoices without actual supply of goods/services. Petitioner, on validity of Show Cause Notice argued that same was wrongly issued by Superintendent, Directorate General of GST Intelligence and should have been issued by the Joint Director. It was also contended that proceedings took place in Faridabad, however, the final order was passed from both places, i.e., Delhi and Faridabad, by the same Officer and there is no clarity as to where the Appeal would lie.
Earlier, as it was unclear where the appeal would lie the Delhi High Court sought response on when “there were entities and individuals in different jurisdictions would there be multiplicity of proceedings before different Appellate Authorities or whether a common Appellate Authority would have the jurisdiction to entertain all the appeals.”
The Delhi High Court referred to Circular no. 250/07/2025-GST dated June 24, 2025 which dealt with appointment of a Common Adjudicating Authority and observed that the final order was passed by Faridabad Commissionerate. The DRC-07 merely uploaded summary of the order passed by the jurisdictional Commissionerate i.e. Joint Commissioner, South Delhi, High Court clarified.
It was then explained that in terms of Clause 4( c) appeal against orders passed by Principal Commissioner of Commissioner of Central Tax, Gurugram and Faridabad were to be filed before the Commissioner (Appeals), Gurugram.
The Delhi High Court rejected the stance of Petitioner that adjudication was by different Commissionerates since post adjudication DRC-07 would have to be uploaded by the concerned Commissionerate, wherein it could be the Superintendent or other higher officials. The Delhi High Court relied upon Circular No. 31/05/2018-GST dated February 09, 2018 to state that in cases involving multiple noticees, the adjudication cannot be done by different Commissionerates and the Commissionerate was decided, depending upon the monetary demands that were proposed to be raised and the manner in which the investigation would have proceeded.
Accordingly, the Delhi High Court relegated Petitioner to pursue the statutory appellate remedy rather than writ jurisdiction as it was a case where allegations of fraudulent availment of Input Tax Credit were made.
Case Name: Manikjeet Singh Kals vs. Union of India & Ors.
For Petitioner: Advocate Vineet Chadha
For Respondent: SSCs Monika Benjamin, Varun Mishra with Advocates Nancy Jain, Sumit K. Batra, Priyanka Jindal, Ashar Hussain