Writ Jurisdiction Article 226
9 articles
A Refund Cannot Be Swept Against a Stayed Demand: Bombay High Court on Appropriation After the 20% Pre-Deposit Under Section 112 of the CGST Act
The Department sanctioned Trivitron Healthcare a net GST refund of Rs. 64,01,750 and then adjusted every rupee of it against a 2017-20 demand that was under appeal. The Bombay High Court held that, with the pre-deposit paid and recovery stayed, the adjustment could not stand, and ordered the money restored within four weeks.
13 min readVoluntary Deposit, Not a Time-Barred Demand: Delhi High Court Upholds a Customs Settlement Commission's Appropriation of Duty Beyond the Section 28 Limitation Period
An importer of confectionery items voluntarily deposited over ₹85 lakh during a DRI investigation into under-invoicing, and its proprietor admitted the full differential duty liability and asked that the deposit be adjusted against it. When the Settlement Commission later appropriated part of that deposit towards duty for a period beyond the Customs Act's five-year extended limitation period, the importer cried foul. The Delhi High Court dismissed the challenge, holding that Section 28 bars the Revenue's power to raise a fresh demand after the limitation period, but does not bar the appropriation of an amount the importer had already, voluntarily and without qualification, admitted was owed and asked to have adjusted.
12 min readRepresenting the Client or Running the Business: Delhi High Court Upholds GST Search of a Tax Advocate's Office Over an Advocate-Client Privilege Challenge
GST intelligence officers searched the office of a practising tax advocate and seized his firm's CPU after alleging he was not merely representing a gaming company under investigation but was himself a beneficiary of an offshore gambling operation generating an alleged ₹365.68 crore GST liability. The Delhi High Court dismissed the advocate's challenge to the search, holding that Section 67(2) of the CGST Act was validly invoked, that advocate-client privilege protects client communications rather than an advocate's own conduct, and that safeguards over third-party client data — not invalidation of the search — were the appropriate remedy.
14 min readSame 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 readJudicial Discipline Binds the Revenue Too: Delhi High Court Quashes a GST Demand That Defied a Binding CESTAT Refund Order
Welspring Universal was handed a Rs. 76,72,000 demand for a CENVAT refund the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal had already held it was entitled to keep, on limitation grounds the Tribunal had already rejected. The Delhi High Court quashed the demand, holding that a departmental adjudicating authority cannot treat a superior appellate order as though it does not exist merely because a parallel proceeding remains formally open.
14 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 readWhose Delay Is It? Delhi High Court Holds a ₹20 Crore Customs Demand Timely Because the Assessee's Own Writ Stay Suspended the Section 28(9) Clock
GKEM International argued that a ₹20.18 crore customs demand was time-barred because its show cause notice sat in the department's 'Call Book' for years. The Delhi High Court disagreed: the delay was occasioned by the assessee's own writ petition and interim stay, which is exactly the circumstance Section 28(9A) excludes from the limitation clock — and the Call Book entry was merely the administrative record of that fact, not its source.
14 min read