The Hon’ble High Court of Allahabad vide its order dated 28.07.2022 in the matter of M/s Singh Group Vs. State of U.P. and 2 Others in Writ Tax No. – 1004 of 2022, held that relaxation of limitation granted in filing the revocation application would also be applicable to the filing of appeal.  Further if the benefit is restricted to the filing of revocation application only and not extended to the appeal proceedings, it will give rise to an absurd situation and there would exist two dates of the order cancelling the registration – one for the purpose of filing an application to revoke that order and another to file appeal there against.

That the petitioner filed the writ petition challenging the order dated 31.03.2022 passed by the first appellate authority rejecting the appeal filed by the petitioner against the order cancelling the registration of the petitioner.  The appeal was dismissed as time barred, treating the date of the order impugned therein to be 11.09.2019, whereas undisputedly the appeal was filed by the petitioner on 18.09.2021. The Hon’ble Court entertained the Writ Petition as the Tribunal has not been constituted till date.

Petitioner’s Submissions: –

• It was submitted on the behalf of the petitioner that even if the date of cancellation of registration order is taken as 11.09.2021, the first appeal filed by the petitioner on 18.09.2021 would be well within time.
• That relying on the judgment of this Court in M/s J.K. Infratech Vs Additional Commissioner & Another (2022) UPTC (111) 731 and on order no.1 of 2020 dated 25.06.2020 issued by the Ministry of Finance and Notification dated 29.08.2021 issued under Section 168A of the CGST Act, 2017, it was submitted that the period of limitation to seek revocation of order cancelling the registration was kept in abeyance up to 31.08.2021 and the assessee was permitted to file an application seeking revocation of order dated 11.09.2021, till 30.09.2021. That the principle should also apply to appeal proceedings.

On the other hand, it was submitted on the behalf of the respondents that no benefit has been granted with respect to filing of appeals.  Therefore, the period of limitation has to be strictly construed.

Held: –

• The Hon’ble Court after considering the submissions from the both sides and the facts of the case, found that the Statutory remedies whether provided by way of filing application to recall an order or appeal remedy have to be real and available to the citizens who may be aggrieved by any order passed by a statutory authority.
• It was found that when the Government has exercised its powers and reached a satisfaction (defects on common portal with respect to service of orders) and provided the relaxation of limitation, by suspending the period of limitation with respect to order passed up to 12^th June, 2020 and placed the date of any order passed up to that date, to 31.08.2020 (on deemed basis), and thereafter, the Government by Notification dated 29.08.2021 suspended the period of limitation to file revocation applications for the period 01.03.2020 to 31.08.2021. Thus, if such an application is filed on 18.09.2021, within the extended limitation, it may not have been said that it is beyond time.
• Further if the intent of the Government to grant relaxation of limitation with respect to an order cancelling the registration, is construed in a way to restrict the benefit to proceedings for revocation and not to extend the same to the appeal proceedings. That construction if made, would give rise to an absurd situation. There would exist two dates of order cancelling a registration – one for the purpose of filing an application to revoke that order and another to file appeal there against.
• Lastly, it was found that the relaxation of limitation being generic and external to nature of remedies, would be applicable to both remedies whether by way of revocation application or by way of appeal. Further similar relaxations were granted at the time of implementation of GST regime when the difficulties were faced by the stake holders, in the working of common portal. Later, the relaxation was granted due to COVID circumstances, through various orders passed by this Court and the Supreme Court, the period of limitation was suspended from 15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022.

The Hon’ble Court with the above findings, held that the appellate authority has clearly erred in rejecting the appeal as time-barred and set aside the order dated 31.03.2022.  The matter was remitted back to the appellate authority to pass a fresh order in accordance with law, treating the appeal filed by the petitioner within limitation.