Order Date – 16 February 2023

Parties: Rohit Enterprises Vs The Commissioner State GST Bhavan, The Dy. Commissioner, State Tax (Appeal), The State Tax Officer, Aurangabad

Facts –

• The Petitioner, Rohit Enterprises, was issued with a show cause notice dated 28-02-2022 calling upon the petitioner to furnish his explanation within a period of 7 working days in respect to matter of cancellation of registration.
• The petitioner replied the show cause notice on 03-03-2022. Citing the reason of the financial crunch, he requested for revocation of the notice. However, the State Tax Officer vide order dated 14-03-2022 cancelled the registration with effect from 21-08-2021.
• The application of petitioner seeking revocation of cancellation was also rejected vide order dated 17-05-2022.

Issue –

• Whether the cancellation of registration is in order?

Order –

• The single bench of Hon’ble High Court held that the right to carry on trade or profession cannot be curtailed contrary to the constitutional guarantee under Art. 19(1)(g) and Article 21 of the Constitution of India. If the person like petitioner is not allowed to revive the registration, the state would suffer loss of revenue and the ultimate goal under GST regime will stand defeated.
• The petitioner, who is sufferer of unique circumstances resulting from pandemic and his health barriers, would be put to great hardship for want of GST registration. The petitioner who is small scale entrepreneur cannot carry on production activities in absence of GST registration. Resultantly, his right to livelihood would be affected.
• Since his statutory appeal suffered dismissal on technical ground, we cannot allow the situation to continue. In the facts and circumstances of this case it would be appropriate to exercise jurisdiction under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India.
• The order cancelling GST registration of the petitioner passed is set aside.