Directed department to consider rectification petition filed for error in GSTR-1, before initiating recovery measures

The Madras High Court recognized that the petitioner had made an inadvertent error in filing the GSTR-1 return, which led to a tax assessment discrepancy. The court provided relief by ensuring that no coercive measures would be taken until the rectification petition was properly considered and disposed of. The order reflects the court's emphasis on fairness, allowing the petitioner the opportunity to rectify the error before any recovery actions are enforced.

In this case, the petitioner correctly filed the GSTR-3B return for January 2018-2019, however, while filing the GSTR-1 statement belatedly, the petitioner mistakenly marked it as pertaining to July 2019-2020 instead of January 2018-2019. Due to this mistake, the tax assessment was based on the erroneous GSTR-1 statement, leading to an alleged excess tax liability. Rectification petition was filed to correct the error but claimed that it had not yet been disposed of, the authorities meanwhile were threatening recovery action based on the impugned order. Petitioner filed present writ petition to challenge impugned order primarily due to an inadvertent error in filing the GSTR-1 return, which led to an incorrect tax assessment and subsequent recovery actions by the authorities.

To read the complete judgment  2024 taxo.online 1376