Madras High Court permits re-submission of Form GSTR-3B under GST

Case Law Details

Brief about Petitioner

Petitioner is a partnership firm, a registered dealer in terms of the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017.

Brief about Petition

Writ Petition filed to direct the 1st Respondent to Permit the Petitioner to correct the Form GSTR-1 for the periods from August 2017 to December 2017 which involves ITC Credit of Rs.29,88,372/-.

Regular returns of turnover are being filed computing the tax payable after setting off Input Tax Credit (ITC) as against the output tax liability.

Monthly returns were filed for the period August 2017 to December 2017 in the GST portal in Form GSTR-3B. The returns were accompanied by annexures in Form GSTR-1 that reflected the total credit in regard to the transactions - CGST, SGST and IGST. There was however, an inadvertent error in reporting the credit in Form GSTR-1 in regard to the outward supplies and Intra-state sales had been erroneously reported as inter-state sales, as a result the CGST and SGST credit was reflected in the IGST column.

Error was noticed by the petitioner when its customers brought to its notice the fact that the tax credit has been reflected in the IGST column instead of CGST/SGST columns posing a difficulty to the customers to avail the said credit.

Petitioner submitted a request for amendment of Form GSTR-1 that came to be rejected on 12.08.2019 on the ground that there was no provision to grant the amendment sought, in any event, not after 31.03.2019 as Notification 71/2018 had extended the time for submission of the amended GSTR-1 till 31.03.2019, for the period 2017-18. The petitioner was thus unable to correct the error.

Petitioner has therefore, come up with the present writ petition seeking a mandamus directing the Assistant Commissioner (ST)/R1 to permit it to correct Form GSTR-1 for the period August 2017 to December 2017 and redistribute the credit available from the IGST column to the CGST and SGST fields.

Observations

Respondents argue that the time for amendment of the details of outward supply stood extended only till 31.03.2019. The petitioner however approached the Officer only on 16.08.2019 seeking rectification of the errors occasioned during the period between October and December 2017.

The officer was thus handicapped and could not grant the relief as sought for in the absence of an enabling provision.

Furthermore, any move to amend the timelines stipulated under statute could only be done by the Government as per Section 164 of the Act, upon recommendation of the GST Council.

As observed by court that Undoubtedly, the petitioner in this case has committed an error in filing of the details relating to credit.

What should have figured in the CGST/SGST column has inadvertently been reflected in the ISGT column. It is nobody’s case that the error was deliberate and intended to gain any benefit, and in fact, by reason of the error, the customers of the petitioner will be denied credit which they claim to be legitimately entitled to, owing to the fact that the credits stands reflected in the wrong column. It is for this purpose, to ensure that the suppliers do not lose the benefit of the credit, that the present writ petition has been filed.

Admittedly, the 31st March 2019 was the last date by which rectification of Form – GSTR 1 may be sought.

However, and also admittedly, the Forms, by filing of which the petitioner might have noticed the error and sought amendment, viz. GSTR-2A and GSTR-1A are yet to be notified. Had the requisite Forms been notified, the mismatch between the details of credit in the petitioner’s and the supplier’s returns might well have been noticed and appropriate and timely action taken. The error was noticed only later when the petitioners’ customers brought the same to the attention of the petitioner.

In the absence of an enabling mechanism, the view of court is that assessees should not be prejudiced from availing credit that they are otherwise legitimately entitled to.

Error committed by the petitioner is an inadvertent human error and the petitioner should be in a position to rectify the same, particularly in the absence of an effective, enabling mechanism under statute.

Order

• This writ petition is allowed and the impugned order set aside.

• Petitioner is permitted to re-submit the annexures to Form GSTR-3B with the correct distribution of credit between IGST, SGST and CGST within a period of four weeks from date of uploading of this order and the respondents shall take the same on file and enable the auto-population of the correct details in the GST portal. No costs.

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