The Madras High Court has submitted the question of whether the high court has the authority under Article 226 to excuse delays that go beyond the maximum time frame allowed by the GST Act to the division bench, given the number of contradictory precedents on the same.
Brief Facts:
The petitioners in this group of writ petitions had contested the cancellation of their individual GST Registrations. The petitioners who were offended by the cancellation of their individual GST Registrations under section 107 of the GST Act filed an appeal, but the respondents declined to hear it on the grounds that it was filed after the maximum time period allowed under Section 107 of the Act.
Observations of the Court:
The Court observed that the issue of whether the High Court can exercise its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution and condone the delay beyond the maximum time limit stipulated under section 107 of the GST Act is held unclear. There are precedents set by the High Court itself which has opposing views.
The single judge acknowledged the fact that while dealing with the very same issue, one of the Hon'ble Single Judges of this Court (Anita Sumanth, J.) in her decision dated 16.11.2022 rendered in a batch of writ petitions in re Pandidorai Sethupathi Raja vs. The Superintendent of Central Tax (W.P.No.14879 of 2022 batch) held that this Court is having the power to condone the delay in filing the appeal under section 107 of the GST Act under certain extraordinary circumstances mentioned in the said order. However, another Hon'ble Judge of this Court (M. Sundar, J.) by way of 2 orders in Hemasri Enterprises vs. The Appellate Authority / The Deputy Commissioner (ST) (FAC) (W.P.No.32877 of 2022) and Ramunajan Venkatesan vs. The Joint Commissioner (Appeals-II) (W.P.No.34774 of 2022), has held that this Court while exercising powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, does not have the power to condone the delay when the statutory appeal filed under section 107 of the GST Act is beyond the maximum time limit stipulated in the said section.
Given the contradictory precedents, the matter was referred to a higher bench for consideration.
The decision of the Court:
The matter was referred to a Division Bench of the High court due to contradictory precedents.
Case Title: M/s. Paul Raj Engineering v. Assistant Commissioner (Circle)
Coram: Honourable Justice Abdul Quddhose
Case No.: W.P. Nos.30542, 32896, 33188, 33234, 33310, 35062, 33766 of 2022 &
W.P. Nos.487, 1196, 1273, 298, 138, 113, 647, 1530, 1520, 1423, 1354 & 1349 of 2023 &
W.M.P. Nos.29972, 32297, 32299, 1273, 1275, 33280, 33281, 34501 of 2022 &
W.M.P. Nos. 285, 286, 127, 128, 101, 587, 1530, 1604, 1508, 1509 & 1400 of 2023
Read Judgment ;
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(With input from news agency language)
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