E-way bill is redundant - Why not abolish?

In a dispute concerning e-waybill, recently Hon'ble Gujarat High Court ruled in favor of taxpayer in the case of Dhabriya Polywood Limited Vs Union of India. In this case, everything was correct like invoice, e-way bill etc. except a small mistake of selecting wrong ODC type of vehicle in the e-way bill. Just for this error, the vehicle was detained by the tax authorities. The taxpayers had also written to authorities to clarify the mistake but of no avail. The taxpayer had to file a writ petition in the High Court to get the vehicle released.

This is not the first such case, there have been many more where the detention and penalties were imposed for some trivial and apparently clerical errors in e-waybills and that also led to Board's detailed circular (CBEC/20/16/03/2017-GST dated 14^th September, 2018) to issue guidelines to field formations. Para 6 of the circular says that for small errors in waybill, a penalty of 1000/- may be imposed but not to detain the vehicle.

In all this above, what happens to the trade and the taxpayers? The flow of trade is intercepted, the customer suffers, the consumer suffers, the supplier pays for delays in delivery,200% penalty and litigation costs apart from mental agony, the Govt. also suffers for litigation costs and time. Why the senior officer in the department cannot handle and control all such issues or why he cannot take decision and stop all this?

E-waybill doing more harm than good - for both Govt. and the taxpayer. There is no need to have this additional document. Must-needed details of the e-waybill can be incorporated in the tax invoice itself. This was the case even in excise invoice in pre-gst era. There were transit checks by tax authorities. To check the movement of the goods, evasion, fake invoicing etc. what is needed is more transit checks and fair administration system. The evaders must be fined and punished. I find no substantial benefits of such huge e-waybill document and system. I suggest the Govt. should seriously look into it and abolish it immediately.

Disclaimer- Views expressed are strictly personal of the writer.