The Hon’ble High Court of Orissa vide its order dated 12.01.2023 in the matter of M/s Shiva Jyoti Construction Vs. The Chairperson, Central Board of Excise & Customs And Others in W.P. (C) No. 18216 of 2017, permitted the assessee to rectify the GST return after the deadline for rectification, when the GST return was filed in Form B2B instead of B2C as was wrongly filed under GSTR-1, in order to avail the benefit of Input Tax Credit.

The Petitioner filed the writ petition before the Hon’ble High Court seeking directions to the respondents to permit the petitioner to rectify the GST Return filed for the period September, 2017 and March 2018 in Form-B2B instead of B2C as was wrongly filed under GSTR-1 in order to get the Input Tax Credit (ITC) benefit by M/s. Odisha Construction Corporation Limited (OCCL), the principal contractor.

It was submitted on the behalf of the Petitioner that the error came to the knowledge when OCCL held up the legitimate running bill amount of the Petitioner by informing it about the above error on 21st January, 2020.  Since then it has been making requests to the respondents to permit it to correct the GSTR – 1, but it was not granted.

On the Other hand, it was submitted on the behalf of the respondents that once the deadline for rectification of the Forms was crossed, permission cannot be granted to the Petitioner.

Held: –

• The Hon’ble Court after considering the submissions and facts of the case, found that if the Petitioner is permitted to rectify the above error, there will no loss whatsoever caused to the respondents/Opposite parties. It is not the case where there would be any evasion of tax and it is only about the ITC benefit which in any event has to be given to the Petitioner.  However, if the benefit is not granted, the Petitioner would be unnecessarily prejudiced.
• Thereafter, the Hon’ble Court took reference of the judgment of Madras High Court in M/s Sun Dye Chem Vs. The Assistant Commissioner ST– dated – 6^th October 2020 in Writ Petition No. – 29676 of 2019, wherein the plea taken by the Petitioner was accepted and it was directed that the Petitioner should be permitted to file the corrected form.

The Hon’ble Court with the above findings, disposed of the writ petition by setting aside the letter of rejection dated 19^th June and 23^rd September, 2020, and permitting the Petitioner to resubmit the corrected Form B2B under GSTR -1 for the periods September, 2017 and March, 2018.  Further, direction was issued to the Opposite Parties/respondents to receive it manually enabling Petitioner to do so. Once the corrected Forms are received manually, the Department will facilitate the uploading of those details in the web portal.