Input Tax Credit Fraud
4 articles
Same Assessee, Same Period, Different Subject Matter: Delhi High Court Applies Armour Security's Two-Fold Test to Uphold Parallel DGGI Proceedings Over State ITC Action
An exporter facing a combined demand of over seven crore rupees from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence argued that the State GST department's earlier, separate proceedings on the same input tax credit and period barred the DGGI's case under Section 6(2)(b) of the CGST Act. The Delhi High Court disagreed, applying the Supreme Court's Armour Security two-fold test to hold that a general ineligible-ITC assessment and a fraud investigation into fictitious suppliers are not the 'same subject matter' merely because both concern ITC claimed in overlapping years, and relegated the challenge, along with an objection to a multi-year consolidated notice, to the statutory appeal.
13 min readState Registration Is No Shield: Delhi High Court Applies Armour Security to Uphold DGGI's Cross-Empowerment in a Multi-State Works-Contract ITC Chain
A works-contract subcontractor holding three separate GST registrations faced a combined demand of over five and a half crore rupees across three states, arising from an alleged fake-invoicing chain traced through its sub-subcontractor. The Delhi High Court rejected its challenge to DGGI's jurisdiction over State-registered taxpayers and to the Delhi North Commissionerate's authority to adjudicate, relegating the reasons-adequacy and Circular 171 defences to the Section 107 appeal, while extending interim protection to file it.
13 min readCircular, Not Notification: Delhi High Court Upholds the 'Highest Demand' Rule for Choosing a Common Adjudicating Authority in Multi-State DGGI Notices
Eight petitioners caught up in an alleged three-layer fake-invoicing chain challenged the jurisdiction of the Delhi-based officer who adjudicated a composite show cause notice naming 146 noticees, arguing that only a notification, not a circular, could assign an adjudicating authority. The Delhi High Court dismissed the petitions, holding that the 'highest demand' circular does no more than allocate business among officers already vested with pan-India jurisdiction by notification, and relegated the petitioners to their statutory appeal.
13 min readFreeze Before Order, Hearing Before Extension: Patna High Court Reads GST Attachment Jurisprudence Into Section 110(5) of the Customs Act
A division bench of the Patna High Court quashed provisional attachments of a digital-marketing company's bank accounts where the department could not show a written, Commissioner-approved order preceding the freeze, and set aside extension orders passed without any hearing before the six-month period expired. Treating Section 110(5) of the Customs Act and Section 83 of the GST Act as in pari materia, the Court imported the Supreme Court's Radha Krishan Industries construction of the GST provision wholesale into the customs context, while also rebuking the department for attempting to cure the defect through a fresh order passed while the writ petition was pending.
14 min read