Order Date – 01 May 2025

Parties:  M/s Rahman Sales Vs The State of Jharkhand, Joint Commissioner of State Tax (Administration), Deputy Commissioner of State Tax and State Tax Officer

Facts –

• The Petitioner M/s Rahman Sales, was served with summary of an order in Form GST DRC-07 for the period July 2017 to March 2018 demanding tax, interest and penalty.
• The petitioner claimed he did not receive DRC-01 or any prior notice and that the DRC-07 order was not uploaded on the portal or emailed properly. He also argued that issuance of Form DRC-01A (pre-show cause notice) was mandatory under Section 73(1) of JGST Act, 2017, which was not followed. 
• Also it was pointed out that an e-mail was issued to him on 14.03.2019, the date on which Form GST DRC-07 was issued asking the petitioner to access his dashboard on the portal to view/downloads/print the order, but there was no attachment of the DRC-07 order to that e-mail and that the same was not ever uploaded on the portal.

Issue –

• Whether the failure to properly serve or upload Form DRC-07 and the absence of a mandatory DRC-01A amounts to a violation of natural justice?

Order –

• The Division Bench of Hon’ble High court held that it is the duty of the respondents, who have passed the order, to upload it on the portal or communicate it to the petitioner otherwise on the petitioner’s e-mail.
• In the light of the docket proceedings which indicates that DRC-07 was not uploaded on the very same day and in absence of any statement by the respondents as to when DRC-07 was actually uploaded, it has to be held that there has been violation of the principles of natural justice on account of non-supply of the said order.
• The impugned order and related proceedings were quashed.