Quick answer: In M/s Aparna Collection v. Union of India & Ors., W.P.(C) 3449/2026 and W.P.(C) 3501/2026, pronounced on 5 October 2026 (judgment reserved on 28 September 2026), a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court (Anil Kshetarpal and Bharat Parashar, JJ.) held that limitation under Section 74(2) and Section 74(10) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 is measured by the date of the substantive show cause notice and the substantive adjudication order. It is not measured by the later dates appearing on the electronic summaries, Form GST DRC-01 and Form GST DRC-07, which Rule 142 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 requires to be served and uploaded alongside the notice and the order. The notices were dated 11 July 2024 and 9 July 2024 and the orders 27 January 2025 and 29 January 2025, all before the cut-off dates the petitioner asserted. The Court declined to examine the fraud, suppression and input tax credit (ITC) grounds under Article 226 and left them to the appellate authority under Section 107.
Key Takeaways
- Substance over summary. Section 74(2) speaks of the notice under Section 74(1), and Section 74(10) of the order under Section 74(9). Forms GST DRC-01 and DRC-07 are summaries and do not replace them.
- Rule 142 is the anchor. The Court read Rule 142(1) and 142(5) as treating DRC-01 and DRC-07 as electronic summaries served or uploaded along with, or after, the substantive document.
- The holding is tied to dates. Both substantive documents in each proceeding fell before the asserted cut-off. The Court did not decide a case where the notice itself was served late.
- Disputed service is left open. The Court declined to decide, in writ jurisdiction, any factual dispute over the mode and date of service of the notice.
- Writ was refused on the merits grounds. Fraud, wilful misstatement, suppression, knowledge and collusion were treated as questions of fact for the appellate authority under Section 107.
1. Introduction
A taxpayer who receives a demand under Section 74 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (“CGST Act”) sees two documents. One is the show cause notice or the order, a reasoned document signed by the proper officer. The other is a short electronic form uploaded to the common portal, Form GST DRC-01 for a notice and Form GST DRC-07 for an order, which summarises the amount demanded. The two do not always bear the same date, particularly where one notice or order covers many recipients.
That gap has become a limitation argument. Section 74 allows the department to demand tax for the period up to Financial Year 2023-24 where ITC is wrongly availed or tax is unpaid by reason of fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts, but it fixes outer limits for the notice and the order. If limitation is counted from the date on the form rather than the date on the notice or the order, a notice or order that was in time can be recast as out of time.
The Delhi High Court in Aparna Collection was asked to accept that recasting in two connected writ petitions. It refused. The Division Bench held that the statute fixes limitation by reference to the substantive notice and order, that Rule 142 describes DRC-01 and DRC-07 as summaries, and that two earlier decisions of the same Court had already settled the position for DRC-07. It then declined to examine the evidence-based grounds in writ jurisdiction.
This article sets out the background, the issues and the reasoning, and then considers where the decision stops. It does not address the later Section 74A, and it does not decide what happens when the substantive notice itself reaches the taxpayer late.
2. Case Summary and Background
The parties and the investigation. The petitioner, M/s Aparna Collection, is a proprietorship registered under the CGST Act. Both proceedings arose from investigations into alleged availment and passing on of inadmissible ITC through entities said to be non-existent or to have issued invoices without any actual supply of goods (paragraph 5).
The first petition, W.P.(C) 3449/2026. The investigation began with an alert from the Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence, Gurugram Zonal Unit, concerning M/s Redmancy World, and extended to several firms and recipients (paragraph 6). The petitioner was alleged to have availed inadmissible ITC of Rs.23,06,264/-, made up of CGST of Rs.11,53,132/- and SGST of Rs.11,53,132/-, on invoices allegedly issued by non-existent entities without actual receipt of goods (paragraph 7). The substantive show cause notice, issued under Section 74(1), is dated 11 July 2024. Form GST DRC-01 bears the date 23 August 2024 (paragraph 8). The Order-in-Original of 27 January 2025 confirmed the demand of Rs.23,06,264/- with applicable interest and equivalent penalty (paragraph 10).
The second petition, W.P.(C) 3501/2026. This proceeding began with an analytical report dated 26 May 2022 from the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management concerning 14 allegedly non-existent firms. The petitioner was Noticee No. 203 (paragraphs 11 and 12). The substantive show cause notice is dated 9 July 2024 and proposed a demand of Rs.2,68,320/-, being CGST of Rs.1,34,160/- and SGST of Rs.1,34,160/-, with interest and penalty (paragraph 13). The petitioner says it learned of the notice only on service of Form GST DRC-01 dated 28 August 2024. The Order-in-Original is dated 29 January 2025, while Form GST DRC-07 is dated 21 February 2025 (paragraph 14).
The petitioner’s case. The petitioner said that the last date for issuing the notice under Section 74(2) was 4 August 2024, calculated, in the first petition, by reference to the extended due date for the annual return for Financial Year 2017-18 (paragraph 9). It contended that DRC-01 is the electronic summary of the notice, that the two were served together, and that the effective date of issue must therefore be the date on the DRC-01 (paragraph 18). In the second petition it added that DRC-07, dated 21 February 2025, fell beyond the asserted limit of 4 February 2025 under Section 74(10) (paragraphs 15 and 18). It also argued that nothing showed fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression, or its knowledge of or collusion with the suppliers, and that Section 107 did not bar a petition going to jurisdiction (paragraphs 16, 19 and 20). The Court records the 4 August 2024 and 4 February 2025 dates as the petitioner’s assertions.
The department’s case. The respondents answered that the substantive notices were issued within the period prescribed by Section 74(2), that the date on DRC-01 cannot displace the date of the substantive notice, and that DRC-07 is only a summary of the order (paragraphs 21 and 22). They added that the petitioner had participated in the adjudication and that the fraud and suppression questions were for the Appellate Authority under Section 107 (paragraph 23).
Issues and holding. The Court framed the principal question as whether the dates on Forms GST DRC-01 and DRC-07 render the substantive notices or the adjudication orders barred under Sections 74(2) and 74(10) (paragraph 25). It answered no. A second, distinct question was whether the grounds on fraud, suppression, knowledge and collusion justified bypassing the appeal under Section 107. It answered no to that as well, disposed of both petitions, and left every merits contention open for the Appellate Authority, expressly without expressing any opinion on them (paragraphs 52 to 54). Any request to exclude the time spent in the writ proceedings was left to the Appellate Authority (paragraph 55).
3. Legal Analysis
The statutory scheme. Section 74 of the CGST Act, headed in the extract reproduced by the Court as dealing with tax “pertaining to the period upto Financial Year 2023-24”, works through two linked time limits. Section 74(10) requires the proper officer to issue the order under Section 74(9) “within a period of five years from the due date for furnishing of annual return for the financial year” to which the demand relates, or within five years from the date of erroneous refund. Section 74(2) then requires the notice under Section 74(1) to be issued “at least six months prior to the time limit specified in sub-section (10) for issuance of order” (paragraph 26). The notice limit is therefore derived from the order limit. Both sub-sections speak of issuing a notice or an order. Neither mentions a form.
Issue one: the date of DRC-01 and Section 74(2). The Court’s reasoning on the notice limb is short and rests on text. Section 74(2) concerns the issuance of the notice under Section 74(1). In the Court’s words, “The electronic summary in Form GST DRC-01 is consequential to the substantive SCN and cannot be treated as substituting the substantive SCN itself” (paragraph 29). Rule 142(1)(a) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 supports that reading, because it requires the proper officer to serve, along with a notice under Section 73 or 74, “a summary thereof electronically in FORM GST DRC-01” (paragraph 30). The Court concluded that the submission that limitation under Section 74(2) “is necessarily to be computed with reference to the date appearing on Form GST DRC-01” could not be accepted (paragraph 31).
Issue two: the date of DRC-07 and Section 74(10). On the order limb the Court relied on precedent from its own jurisdiction. Rule 142(5) provides that a summary of the order “shall be uploaded electronically in FORM GST DRC-07”. The Court said that the question “is no longer res integra” and applied Rishi Enterprises through its Proprietor Rajeev Kumar Goel v. Additional Commissioner Central Tax Delhi North & Anr., W.P.(C) 4374/2025, decided on 20 August 2025, and Suresh Kumar v. Commissioner, CGST Delhi North, W.P.(C) 12199/2025, decided on 13 August 2025 (paragraphs 33 to 37). Rishi Enterprises held that Section 74(10) requires the order, not the DRC-07, to be issued within the period. Suresh Kumar involved 650 noticees and ITC of Rs.173 crores, and recognised that generating a DRC-07 for each noticee could take reasonable time so long as the order itself had been communicated by e-mail, post or another mode under Section 169 of the CGST Act (paragraph 36).
The Court distilled the principle in paragraph 37: the limitation under Section 74(10) attaches to the substantive adjudication order under Section 74(9), and “the mere fact that DRC-07 is uploaded or bears a date subsequent to the expiry of the period prescribed under Section 74(10) would not, by itself, render the substantive adjudication order time-barred”. It also noticed Sahithi Marketers v. Superintendent of Central Tax, (2025) 29 Centax 129 (Telangana), which treated DRC-07 as only a summary of the order (paragraph 30). That decision refers to CCT v. Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Health Care Limited on alternative remedy; it appears only inside the extract and is general background, not an authority the Delhi Court applied.
A qualification the Court preserved. The passage quoted from Rishi Enterprises contains a caution that the Court reproduced without disapproval: “there is no doubt that the DRC-07 ought to ideally accompany the order or should be uploaded within a reasonable time, as without the DRC-07, no appeal can be filed and no demand can be enforced” (paragraph 34, quoting Rishi Enterprises). The principle is therefore not that DRC-07 timing is irrelevant. It is that delay in uploading the form does not make the order itself time-barred. A taxpayer facing unreasonable delay in upload still has an argument.
Application to the facts. The Court observed that the present case “stands on an even clearer footing” (paragraph 38). In the first petition the substantive notice (11 July 2024) preceded the asserted cut-off of 4 August 2024, and the order (27 January 2025) preceded the asserted cut-off of 4 February 2025. In the second, the notice (9 July 2024) and the order (29 January 2025) did the same. The Court also disposed of the point that the petitioner learned of the notice only through DRC-01. Receipt of the notice together with, or through, the later form does not change the date borne by the notice (paragraph 39). A dispute on the mode and date of service would need examination of departmental records, which the Court declined to undertake where the notice itself preceded the alleged cut-off.
The “issue” authorities. The petitioner relied on decisions on the meaning of “issue”. The Court did not name them. It distinguished them in one step: they “concern situations where the substantive notice itself was not issued within the prescribed period” (paragraph 40). That confines them but leaves the live question open.
Issue three: alternative remedy. The Court restated the settled position that an alternative remedy does not absolutely bar Article 226 jurisdiction, but that where the statute provides a complete and efficacious appellate mechanism the High Court ordinarily restrains itself, particularly where the challenge involves disputed facts or the correctness of findings (paragraph 45). It cited Assistant Commissioner of State Tax and Others v. Commercial Steel Limited, (2022) 16 SCC 447, for the recognised exceptions: breach of fundamental rights, violation of natural justice, proceedings wholly without jurisdiction, or a challenge to vires. It added that the mere assertion of an exception “does not by itself require” the writ court to entertain the petition (paragraph 46). The Court noted that no denial of hearing was shown and that the limitation challenge disclosed no patent jurisdictional defect (paragraphs 47 and 48). The remaining grounds, it said, would convert “the writ jurisdiction into appellate jurisdiction” (paragraph 50). Those grounds included whether the suppliers were non-existent, whether the petitioner knew, and the validity of the penalty (paragraphs 43 and 51).
Critique. The reasoning on DRC-01 is persuasive. Section 74(2) is textually about the notice, Rule 142(1) describes the form as a summary, and a rule-based form cannot move a statutory limit. The reasoning on DRC-07 is equally sound and follows the Court’s own precedents, but it is the more practically delicate half. An order that is dated but neither communicated nor uploaded leaves the taxpayer unable to appeal. The retained “reasonable time” qualification is therefore important. The judgment is also careful not to resolve service. Paragraph 39 treats the mode and date of service as a factual matter and places the substantive notice’s date ahead of any argument about how it reached the taxpayer. That leaves untested a notice dated in time but made available only after limitation expired.
Does the reasoning survive amendment? The judgment construes Section 74 as it applies to the period up to Financial Year 2023-24. Rule 142(1) as extracted by the Court already includes bracketed references to Section 74A, which governs later periods. The Court did not consider Section 74A or its separate limitation structure. The textual logic probably carries across, but that is analysis, not a holding, and the decision should not be read across to other regimes.
4. Practical Significance
For taxpayers and advisers. The first step on receiving a demand is to identify three dates for each document: the date on the notice or order itself, the date it was communicated and by what means, and the date on the DRC form. After Aparna Collection, an argument built only on the DRC date will fail in Delhi where the substantive document is dated within time. The stronger arguments are those the Court left open: that the substantive document was not in fact issued or made available when it is dated, or that it was communicated only after limitation expired. Record portal download timestamps and e-mail headers early.
For appeals. Because DRC-07 carries the demand figures, an appeal cannot realistically be prepared without it. A taxpayer who received an order without a DRC-07 should say so in the appeal memorandum and, where time is in issue, ask that the period before the form was available be treated as relevant to delay. The Court also left to the Appellate Authority any request to exclude the time spent in the writ proceedings (paragraph 55), without saying it will be granted.
Choice of remedy. The decision is a clear example of a limitation writ refused. A limitation writ must show a defect patent on the record; where the substantive documents are dated within time, the ground is unlikely to open the door. Where the real grievance is that ITC was denied without evidence of knowledge or collusion, the Court’s view is that the appellate authority, which can examine both law and fact (paragraph 44), is the forum. Taxpayers should plan for the statutory appeal, including the pre-deposit under Section 107, rather than assume that a writ will pause the demand. The Court gave no interim protection and made no direction on pre-deposit.
For the department. The ruling supports issuing the substantive notice or order first and generating DRC forms afterwards, but the officer should be able to prove when it was issued and communicated. Where a single order covers many noticees, the department should upload individual DRC-07 forms within a reasonable time, since Suresh Kumar and Rishi Enterprises tolerate delay only where it is reasonable and the order has been communicated.
Precedential weight. This is a decision of a two-judge Bench of the Delhi High Court on a writ petition. It follows and consolidates two earlier Delhi decisions, the second of which is itself a prima facie view in a writ that sent the petitioner to appeal. The judgment text carries no reportability designation. It is persuasive outside Delhi, and a High Court that has taken a different approach to when a notice or order is “issued” for Section 74 purposes is not bound by it. As background and not as part of this judgment, readers should keep in view that other High Courts have recently considered when a GST notice or order is validly served and from when time runs, and should check the position in the relevant High Court before relying on this one.
5. Conclusion
Aparna Collection answers a narrow but recurring question: whether the date on an electronic summary form can make an in-time notice or order late. The Delhi High Court says it cannot. Section 74(2) and Section 74(10) govern the substantive notice and the substantive order, Rule 142 describes DRC-01 and DRC-07 as summaries, and the Court’s earlier decisions in Suresh Kumar and Rishi Enterprises already treated a delayed DRC-07 as no ground for holding an order time-barred.
The decision is strongest where it is narrowest. On the facts, both notices and both orders preceded even the cut-off dates the petitioner itself asserted, so the limitation case was weak from the start. The Court left three matters open: what follows if the notice itself is in time on its face but was served late, how long a delay in uploading a DRC-07 may run before it becomes unreasonable, and whether the same logic applies to Section 74A for later periods. The merits of the fraud, suppression and ITC allegations were expressly left to the Appellate Authority.
For practitioners the lesson is one of method. Limitation arguments in Section 74 matters should be built on the substantive documents and the evidence of when they were issued and communicated, not on the dates generated by the portal. And where the real complaint is the absence of proof of knowledge or collusion in an ITC denial, the route is the statutory appeal, prepared with the pre-deposit in mind. The question of when the time to appeal starts where the DRC-07 is delayed will need to be answered in a case where it is actually in issue.
Authorities and Legislation
Applied by the Court:
- Rishi Enterprises through its Proprietor Rajeev Kumar Goel v. Additional Commissioner Central Tax Delhi North & Anr., W.P.(C) 4374/2025, decided on 20 August 2025 (Delhi High Court) — Section 74(10) requires the order, not Form GST DRC-07, to be issued within the limitation period.
- Suresh Kumar v. Commissioner, CGST Delhi North, W.P.(C) 12199/2025, decided on 13 August 2025 (Delhi High Court) — delay in uploading DRC-07 for a large number of noticees does not make the order time-barred where the order was communicated.
- Assistant Commissioner of State Tax and Others v. Commercial Steel Limited, (2022) 16 SCC 447 (Supreme Court) — recognised exceptions to the alternative-remedy rule.
Noticed by the Court as a similar decision:
- Sahithi Marketers v. Superintendent of Central Tax, (2025) 29 Centax 129 (Telangana High Court) — delay in uploading DRC-07; the judgment also contains a reference, inside the extract, to CCT v. Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Health Care Limited, which is background to that decision and not applied by the Delhi Court.
Contentions of counsel not separately named in the judgment:
- Unnamed decisions on the meaning of “issue” relied on by the petitioner, distinguished at paragraph 40.
Legislation:
- Sections 74(1), 74(2), 74(9), 74(10), 107 and 169, Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 — https://www.indiacode.nic.in/
- Rule 142(1) and 142(5), Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017; Forms GST DRC-01 and GST DRC-07.
- Article 226, Constitution of India.
- Judgment text: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/146145253/
This article is not legal advice and does not create an attorney–client relationship. Readers should verify the certified copy of the judgment and any subsequent clarificatory orders before relying on it, and consult a qualified advocate on the facts of their matter.