State of U.P. v. Yash Kothari Public Charitable Trust – [2023]
The petitioner was a public charity trust that was registered. A summary order was issued by the department in accordance with GST Act, 2017, Rule 142(5). It appealed the initial order online, but it was rejected, and the web page showed an error. It complained in writing to the appropriate party that the site was not allowing appeals against departmental orders and asked for permission to accept offline appeals. However, the Additional Commissioner, however, demanded that the petitioner provide the online acceptance of appeal, and it filed a writ case with the High Court.
The Honorable High Court stated that under the CGST Act, 2017, anyone who feels aggrieved by a decision has the right to appeal it. But, in this instance, the Appellate Authority’s decision to reject the appeal offline prevents the taxpayer from exercising his right to appeal the adjudication ruling.
The Court further stated that it would be assumed that the other method of submitting an appeal would be offline in the absence of a notification published in the official gazette allowing for it. As a result, the Court ruled that tax officials cannot prevent any taxpayer from asserting his legal rights on the basis of a technicality and ordered the Appellate Authority to take an offline appeal into account.
