M/s. A.S.Met Corp Private Limited v. 1. Deputy Commissioner (ST) (FAC)

Petition under section 'r 51 cpc praying that in the circumstances stated in the affidavit filed in s;up,port of the writ petition, the High court may be preased to grant stay of a[ furtherr proceedings pursuant to the impugned proceedings in Form GST DRC-07 dated 2.7.202s passed by the 1St Respondent for the tax period 2021-22, pencing disposal of the writ petition as otherwise the petitioner will be put to severe loss and hardship. Counsel for the petitioner: SRt KARTHTK RAMANA PUTTAMREDDY Counsel for the Respondents No.1to3 : SRI SWAROOP OORILLA Spt.GP FOR STATE TAx counsel forthe Respondents No.4: sRr K.SANJEEV, sc FoR CENTRAL Govr Counsel for the Respondents No.5&6 : -_ The Court made the fotlowing: ORDER THE HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SRI APARESH KUMAR SINGH THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE G.M.MOHIUDDIN AND WRIT PETITION No.29376 of 2025 ORDER: Learned counsel Sri Karthik Ramana Puttamreddy appears for the petitioner. Sri Swaroop Oorilla, learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax, appears for respondent Nos.1 to 3. Sri K.Sanjeev, learned Standing Counsel for Central Government, appears for Union of India

2. Heard the learned counsel for the parties

3. The impugned order in-original dated O2.O7.2025 passed under Section 74 of the Telangana Goods and Services Tax Act, 2OI7 (hereinafter referred to as, "the TGST Act"), relates to the financial year 2O2l-2O22. The petitioner, being aggrieved, has preferred the vvrit petition, inter alia, taking the ground that the relied upon documents seized during inspection \&'ere not supplied by the adjudicating officer before arriving at a clecision' The t I ? =-! petitioner !\'as denied proper opportunity of hearing When the petiticne,r made a request for an adjournment, the request lr.as not heeded to and instead, thO order in- original r.r.a s passed

4. In support of the aforesaid submission, learned counsel lo r r he petitioner relied upon a decision of the Division Bench of the erstu.hile High Court of Andhra Pradesh in W.p.No.24954 of 2015, dated 11.08.20 1S, relating to a penalty order passed under the Andhra Pradesh Valu: Added Tax Act, 2005. He submits that on the very da.re on u,hich the request for adjournment \.vas made, the a clj rdicating officer ought not to have passed the final orcier. ri ithout giving an adequate opportunity of. hearing in the teeth of the provisions of Section 75(5) of the TGST Act.

5. Learnc.cl counsel for the petitioner further submits that the seizerl documents were not duly pror.ided to the petitioner in Form INS-02. Apart rrom the above, learned counsel for thc petitioner has taken a number of other grounds as:;ailir-rg that the impugned proceedings are q I J motivated. and lvithout proper application of mind, a huge liability has been imposed upon the petitioner Learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax 6. has strongly countered the submissions of the learne d counsel for the petitioner. He has submitted that the claim of non-supply of the relevant documents is untenable on facts, as a mere perusai of the impugned order u'ou1d indicate lhat the documents which the petitioner alleges lo have not been supplied relate to the invoices for the financial year 2017-2O18, whereas the present proceedings relate to the financial year 2O2l-2O22 He has also referred to the previous two rounds of litlgation on the same subject Period. 7 . Our attention has been drawn to the findings recorded by the acljudicating officer at page Nos' l2O to 125 of the material papers annexed to the u'rit petition ' According to the learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax, thel' demonstrate that the petitioner in the first round of litigation approached this Court on the plea that the orders and show cause notices were unsigned The :l matter i\ras r€ mitted to the adjudicating officer. Thereafter, the petitioner once again laid challenge to the impugned proceedings ou the ground that the relied upon documents \r,ere not sup,plied. It is submitted that after the order dated 05.C3.2025 passed in W.P.Nos.i7938, 17941 & 18148 of 2O2.! and 1005 & 1130 of 2025, tine adjudicating officer has srrpplied the scanned copies of several such documents fc,r Lhe financial year 2O2O 2O2l i.e., 18 10 scanned copi,:s through e mail dated 15.04 .2025 at the time of issuar-rce of DRC-O 1A dated ll.O4.2O2S and also made attentp,s to provide the hard copies, vr.htch u,ere denied. T}re scanned copies r,l.ere again sent through e-mail ri.hile DRC-01 u,as issued on 29.O4.2O25. The assessee q'es erske d to depute a person to coilect the supporting n-rrLterial and also get soft copies of the scanned documents. l'he taxpayer, hou,ever, did not file any submissions; i r-r Part B of the DRC-O 1A. A revised shou, cause noticr: u'as thereafter issued under Section T4 ol the TGST Act/Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 read ',r,ith Seclion 20 of the Integrated Goods and Services Ta_x Act, 20L7, irr Form DRC-Ol on 29.O4.2025 q,ithout 'l i I ) prejudice to any other action that may be initiated under the TGST Act. It is submitted that the petitioner through its Advocate attended personal hearing before the adjudicating officer on 26.05.2025 and requested to provide the certified copies with serial numbers. Hence, 2434 photocopies of seized documents and 363 Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) data tracking \vere provided b-v the department along with the soft copy in a pen drive and covering letter handed over on 29.05.2025 duly acknou'iedged by the petitioner's representative. Even then, the petitioner kept on persisting that the documents w-ere not clear or legible. The assessee, however, neither ciearly specitied the documents which were missing nor specified the documents which were i1legib1e. The petitioner was granted multiple opportunities to visit the office on scheduled dates i.e., 12.06.2025, 16.06.2025, 18.06.2025 and, 20.06.2025 at 11.30 am to collect the required documents, but it failed to visit. The adjudicating officer issued three reminders on 02.06.2025, 2l'06'2025 and

25.06.2025 to avail the personal hearing and to file replv' Even after receipt of 2434 documents along r"'ith DRC 01A I I 6 \ .i and the revised show cause notice in addition to providing the photocopies of all the documents on 29 05'2025' lhe petitioner did not ftle any replv to the revised shor'v cause notice an<l ctid not respond till date Then on 02 'O7 2025' the date c,f personal hearing, it made a request at 1 12 pm to constdt:r the adjournment of 15 days for the scheduled personai he rring ancl also for submission of tl-Le objections to the revised shor'v cause notice. The assessee also claimed that 60 dil.1'r.; lime has to be granted lrom the date of supply of all the d ocuments relied upon to furnish reply to the shou. cause notice. Hor'"'ever, the adjudicating officer was of the opinion that sufficient time and opportunities have been providecl to the ta-xpaver u'ho has iaiied to submit its reply. Thert:Jbre, after examining the correspondence and the periorl aLlread-r'consumed, the adjudicating officer carne to the conr:lusion that the assessee is not lnterested in submitting the repl1', despite huge number of opportuniti,rs. It is submitted that the assessee has claimed tnput Tax Credit (lTC) r'r'ithout phvsical ins'ard supph, tax invoices, registers, using of irrelevant vehicles as per e \\'a,\' bi1ls, non submissiou of information/ 7 documents in spite of multiple notices. Therefore, the ITC \,vas proposed to be disallor,r'ed to a tune of Rs.50,69,735/- ol CGST, a similar amount ol TGST and IGST of Rs. 1,40,31,290l-. B. Learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax has referred to the other findings of the adjudicating officer r,vhich according to him demonstrate frauduient availment of ITC without making supplies. He submits that the petitioner has an alternative remedy of appeal under Section lO7 of the TGST Act. He relies upon the decision of the Apex Court in Civil Appeal No.7170 of 2022 dated 14.10.2022 (State of Madhya Pradesh v' M/s. Commercial Engineers and Body Building Company Limited). g. Based on the aforesaid submissions, learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax has prayed that the writ petition may be dismissed and the petitioner may be relegated to avail the alternative remedy of appeal' Ii .-I \ .--'.1 8

10. V1e have given considerable hearing to the learned counsel for the parties and perused the relevant docum,:nts placed from record 1 1 . The previous history of the litigatron has been referre<1 to in the foregoing paragraphs. Ir appears that after the matter u'as remitted vide order dated 05.03.2025 passed irL W.P.Nos.77938, 17941 &, 18148 of 2O2t and 1005 tt 1130 of 2025, the department has provided scannerl ,ropies ol several documents u,hich relate to the financial , ear 2O2l-2022, lr,hich u-e re acknou,ledged b1, the petitioner Horn,ever, it kept on persisting that the docume,nts rvere either illegibte o. ,u"." missing without specifying as to u,hich documents r,r'ere missing. It further appears titat multiple remrnders u.ere issued for personal hearing, such as on 02 .06 .2025, 2l .06 .2025 and

25.06 .2C25 , n'hereafter the matter u as fixed on 02.OT .2025 u.hen tht: petitioner made a pra-yer 1br 15 days \ adjournment for personal hearing and also lbr submission of its oltjections to the revised shor,r, cause notice. This, 9 however, was declined since according to the adjudicating officer, suflicient opportunities have already been gralted.

12. The conspectus of facts and the chronologr of events, which have been noted above, show that the petitioner has been granted three opportunities of personal hearing as required under the provisions of Section 75(5) of the TGST Act. It, however, neither availed the notice of personai hearing nor filed its reply to the revised show cause notice despite service of hundreds of documents relating to the financial yea;. 2O2l-2O22. Tlne petitioner, in the writ petition, prays that this Court should eiamine as to u,hether the supply of documents numbering in hundreds cover the subject period 2021-2022 and whether some of the documents on the basis of which the findings of the adjudicating officer are based, were not served upon it. This, in our opinion, at best could be a facet of principles of natural justice which ground is open for the petitioner to take before the appellate authority as per the provisions of Section 1O7 of the TGST Act. The petitioner has also alleged that the opportunity of personal hearing was not 10 \ granted. Hrtwever, it appears that despite issuance of three personal hearing notices, the petitioner has faiied to avail the same a.nd then on the date on which the order in original u'as passed, it has made a belated request to seek adjournment ald file reply.

13. We have taken note of thc decision of the Division Bench of the erstwhile High Court of Andhra pradesh in W.P.No.24.9[.t4 of 2015, dated 1 1.08.2015. A perusal of the said orde r shows that it relates to the Andhra pradesh Value Added Tax Act, 20O5, in which only one opportunity of hearingl ,,vas granted to the petitioner therein. The petitioner ttLerein had time to lile the objecrions up to 05.O7 .2O75, but the order impugned therein n,as passed on 02.07.201.5 itself. In those circumstances, the order of penalty irrrpugned therein ri,as set aside. The aforesaid decision is th erefore distinguishable on facts.

14. Having taken note of the aforesaid facts and clrcumstanc€s, we are unable to accede to the submissio^ of the learr-ied counsel for the petitioner that the adjudicating olficer has, without gralting adequate 1l '1 opportunity of personal hearing to the petitioner ald without supplying the relevant relied upon documents, passed the impugned order in-original. Needleis to say that the writ proceedings are entertainable on grounds of error of jurisdiction or violation of principles of natural justice or if there is a violation of fundamental rights. In such financial matters, it is the consistent view of the Apex Court, as also held in Civil Appeal No.7170 of 2022, dated 14.1O.2022 (State of Madhya pradesh v. M/s. Commercial Engineers and Body Building Company Limited), relied upon by the learned Special Government Pleader for State Tax that when the taxing statute provides for an alternative remedy for resolution of dispute, the writ court would be loath to enter into such disputed questions of fact which can adequately be raised before the appellate authority. In such circumstances, we are not inclined to interfere with the matter.

15. The petitioner is at liberty to approach the appellate authority with statutory pre-deposit as per the provisions of Section 107(1) read with sub-section (4) of the TGST Act. '-\*----1 - 1 6. Let it be made clear that the observations made hereinabc,ve are limited to examine whether the petitioner has beerL ,lenied principles of naturai justice or the adjudicating; officer has failed to follolt, the procedure prescribed under the Act while passing the impugned order-in origina,l. We have not entered into tl-re mcrits of the case of the parties. The appellate authority would be free to consider the grounds raised in appeal in accordance rvith law.

17. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed. Horvever, there shall be no order as to costs Miscellar-reous applications pending, if any, shall stand closed //TRUE COPYII SD/. L. VIJAYA LAXMI ASSISTANT REGISTRAR SECTION OFFICER To,

1. One CC to SRI KARTHIK RAMANA PUTTAMREDDY, Advocate. [OPUC] 2. One CC to SRI SWAROOP OORILLA, SPL.G.P for State Tax. [OPUC] 3 One CC to SRI K.SANJEEV, SC FOR CENTRAL GOVERNMENT. [OPUC] 4. Two CD Copies. BSK LS h2 HIGH COURT SDATED:0611012025 '-:1,e 1 rr r: .s 14 l(. o^ il 2$0tI 2np i-. i-, x.1 \\ (( /l i- il :. 1 ORDER '\r WP.No.29376 of 2025 DISMISSING THE WRIT PETITION WITHOUT COSTS 1b o 1;\