In this judgment, the Hon’ble Bombay High Court held that the appellate authority cannot reject appeal when there is sufficient proof of payment of pre-deposit.
The petitioner filed an appeal and his appeal was rejected by the appellate authority, inter alia, on the grounds that pre-deposit has not been made by the petitioner and that lack of any proof that the authorised person has been given such authority.
In the petition, the petitioner exhibited the Form APL-01, showing at Sr. No. the amount of thereof that pre-deposit paid has been paid, screenshots of the Electronic Credit Ledger, and the Electronic Cash Ledger from the GSTN portal and system generated provisional acknowledgement of the appeal, which is generated automatically by the Respondents’ portal once an assessee files an appeal.
The Court held that such system generated acknowledgment is itself proof of payment of pre-deposit and of compliance with condition of Section 107(6) of the CGST Act.
The second ground on which the appeal is dismissed is that the Appellant has not submitted any valid documents, such as a Board resolution appointing the said person as an authorised signatory to sign the appeals. The Court noted that the concerned person is already registered on the GST portal as the authorised signatory.
The Court order the quashing of the impugned order and remand it to the department for de novo consideration.
W&B Comments: This case highlights a continuous problem in the GST regime where the department frequently either ignores the data already available on the GST portal or ignores the proof submitted by the taxpayer. To be on the cautious side, the taxpayer should always save the provisional acknowledgment generated after the appeal has been filed. The acknowledgment in form APL 02 is often delayed even after submission of physical copies of appeal and holding of personal hearing, and in such situations provisional acknowledgment can help the courts in clearly determining the date of filing appeal, pre-deposit amounts etc.