Court No. - 3
Case :- WRIT TAX No. - 750 of 2021 Petitioner :- M/S Maa Geeta Traders Respondent :- Commissioner Commercial Tax And Another Counsel for Petitioner :- Pooja Talwar Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Naheed Ara Moonis,J. Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh,J.
Heard Ms. Pooja Talwar, learned counsel for the petitioner and Shri Apurva Hajela, learned Standing Counsel for the State.
Challenge has been raised to the impugned order dated 07.08.2021 passed by Deputy Commissioner, Shahjahanpur, Sector 1, Bareilly under Section 74(9) of the U.P. Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 for the tax period 2019-20 (July, September and October).
Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the aforesaid order has been passed without adequate service of the show cause notice, preceding that order. Second, the Form DRC-01A prescribed under Rule 142 (1A) of the U.P. GST Rules, 2017 was not issued and in any case, the show cause notice that has been confirmed in the impugned order does not make any mention of the details of the demand, inasmuch as no Relied Upon Documents ('RUDs' in short) have been referred to. Thus, violation of principle of natural justice has been alleged.
On the other hand learned Standing Counsel submits that the petitioner has adequate remedy of appeal and therefore the writ petition may not be entertained. As to the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner, it has been pointed out that it is not a case of the petitioner that no notice was ever issued to it but that the physical copy of the notice was not served upon it. In that regard, reliance has been placed on the contents of paragraphs 21 and 22 of the writ petition. As to the other defects pointed out by learned counsel for the petitioner, it has been submitted that even if it is accepted, the same may only lead a procedural irregularities in the exercise of jurisdiction but not inherent lack of jurisdiction.
Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record, it does appear that the impugned order came to be passed after service of soft copies of the show cause notice. The petitioner only denies service of the hard copy of the same and has further submitted that the reply of the same could not be submitted as it did not exactly comprehend the nature of the proceedings initiated against it. As to the other submissions advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner, those point to irregular exercise of jurisdiction but not inherent lack of jurisdiction.
In such facts, we are not inclined to interfere in face of adequate remedy of appeal available to the petitioner.
Accordingly, the writ petition is disposed of with a direction, in case, the petitioner files an appeal along with the stay application within a period of two weeks' from today, the same may be entertained on its own merits.
Order Date :- 20.9.2021 Saurabh