Appeal Can't Be Dismissed Due To Non-Payment Of Pre-Deposit If Department's Portal Acknowledges Compliance: Bombay High Court

Observing that provisional acknowledgement automatically generated on Department portal shows that the requisite pre-deposit has been made, the Bombay High Court held that the Assessee had duly complied with the necessary pre-deposit required u/s 107(6) of the CGST Act.The Division Bench of Justice M.S Sonak and Justice Jitendra Jain observed that in a similar matter in Bytedance (India) Technology Pvt Ltd vs. UOI [W.P (L) No.23724 of 2024], it was held by this court that “On the amount of pre-deposit, there is enough evidence annexed to the petition that the sum has been deposited and even the receipt is annexed to the petition. Therefore, to say that there is no pre-deposit in the impugned order is incorrect”. Facts of the case: The appeal filed by the Petitioner/ Assessee was dismissed on the ground that the payment of the pre-deposit equal to 10% of the disputed amount in terms of Section 107(6) of the CGST was not complied with. Hence, the present petition before the High Court. Observations of the High Court:The Bench referred to the claim of Petitioner that they had made a pre-deposit of Rs. 4,42,55,474/- (10% of the disputed tax amount) when filing their appeal before the Respondent. In the memorandum of appeal i.e., Form APL-01 itself, the Bench found that the amount of pre-deposit paid has been specified. Further, the petition contained screenshots of the Electronic Credit Ledger, and the Electronic Cash Ledger of the Petitioner downloaded from the GSTN portal, which shows that the Petitioner has made a total payment of Rs. 4,42,55,474/- from the Electronic Credit Ledger, added the Bench. The Bench also referred to the system generated provisional acknowledgement of the appeal, which is generated automatically by the Respondents' portal once an assessee files an appeal. If the Respondent was not satisfied with the amounts claimed to have been paid by the Petitioner, he should have intimated that to the Petitioner and provided the Petitioner with an opportunity to clarify and prove the payments made by them, added the Bench. Hence, the High Court quashed the order-in-dismissal of appeal and remanded the matter to the Respondent for de-novo consideration. Counsel for Petitioner/ Asessee: Sriram Sridharan and Shanmuga DevCounsel for Respondent/ Revenue: Karan Adik and Sangeeta YadavCase Title: Delphi World Money vs. Union of India (Writ Petition No. 28914 of 2024)Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Bom) 604Click here to read/ download the Judgment

Appeal Can't Be Dismissed Due To Non-Payment Of Pre-Deposit If Department's Portal Acknowledges Compliance: Bombay High Court

Pankaj Bajpai

Tags