Facts of the Case

The petitioner's GST registration was cancelled by the 4th respondent following a show cause notice dated 20.03.2023, with the registration first suspended and later cancelled. The petitioner attempted to file an appeal against the cancellation digitally through the official GST portal before the 1st respondent, the Appellate Additional Commissioner (ST), Tirupati, but the appeal could not be numbered as the appellate authority had not yet been technically 'mapped' or constituted on the digital system. The petitioner therefore filed the appeal manually on 26.04.2023, evidenced by a provisional acknowledgment bearing the Appellate Authority's stamp, but the appeal remained pending.

Issues Involved

  1. Whether an appeal manually filed against a GST registration cancellation, when the digital appellate mechanism was non-functional, should be registered and processed by the appellate authority.

Petitioner's Arguments

  • The digital mode of filing appeal was not accepted since the appellate authority had not been mapped on the system, forcing the petitioner to file manually.
  • Since the registration was cancelled, the petitioner could not digitally upload supporting documents such as invoices and proposed to submit them manually along with the appeal.

Respondent's Arguments

  • The Government Pleader confirmed that the 1st respondent had since been constituted as the Appellate Authority and would take up the appeal if already filed, and that the petitioner could argue the case on merits before it.

Court Order / Findings

  • The provisional acknowledgment on record, bearing the stamp of the Appellate Additional Commissioner (ST), Tirupati, prima facie established that the petitioner had indeed filed the appeal.
  • Where the digital appellate mechanism under the GST Act is not functional due to non-mapping of the appellate authority, an assessee's manually filed appeal, along with manually submitted supporting documents, must be registered and processed on merits rather than left unaddressed.
  • The 1st respondent was directed to register the appeal, if otherwise in order, and process it for hearing within two weeks, with liberty to the petitioner to submit all relevant documents manually given the cancelled registration.

Important Clarification

  • A taxpayer cannot be left remediless merely because the GST portal's digital appellate infrastructure is not yet functional for a particular appellate authority; courts will direct that a manually filed appeal, with manually submitted supporting documents, be registered and heard on merits within a fixed timeframe.

Sections Involved

  • Section 107, CGST Act, 2017 - appeal to Appellate Authority against orders of adjudicating authority, including cancellation of registration.
  • Section 29, CGST Act, 2017 - cancellation of registration.

Decision – In Favour of

The writ petition was disposed of in favour of the Assessee, with a direction to register and process the manually filed appeal within two weeks.

Case Details

Court: High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Amaravati
Case No.: Writ Petition No.14312 of 2023
Coram: Justice U. Durga Prasad Rao and Justice Venkata Jyothirmai Pratapa
Date of Order: 21.06.2023

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