Order Date – 19 June 2025

Parties: BALVINDER SINGH Vs ASSISTANT ENFORCEMENT OFFICER ENFORCEMENT SQUAD STATE GST DEPARTMENT, ENFORCEMENT OFFICER AND JOINT COMMISSIONER (APPEALS)

Facts –

• The Petitioner, Balvinder Singh, proprietor of M/s Symphony Impex, had his goods intercepted on 24.07.2023, resulting in an order under Section 129(3) of the CGST Act. He paid the demand under protest and attempted to file an appeal.
• However, the GST portal showed the demand as ‘Nil’, preventing appeal filing. Despite raising the issue with authorities, no remedy was provided, leading him to file a manual appeal, which was later rejected as time-barred by the Joint Commissioner (Appeals), overlooking the portal-related difficulties.

Issue –

• Whether the petitioner can be denied the statutory right of appeal?

Order –

• The Single Bench of Hon’ble High Court observed that the tax covered by the order under challenge was paid, will not take away such right of appeal of the party. Here in this case, merely because, the petitioner remitted the amount under protest, he was deprived of the opportunity to invoke the statutory remedy. The denial of that statutory remedy was not attributable to the petitioner at all, but solely because of the shortcomings in the system provided by the respondents for filing the appeal.
• It was also observed that, the fact that the system does not generate a demand or that the system does not contemplate the filing of an appeal without a demand, does not mean that the intention of the legislature was to deny the right of appeal to the party.
• Moreover, despite a specific direction issued by this Court in W.P.(C) No. 17454/2022, as early as on 20.07.2022, this issue was not addressed. Thus the petitioner cannot be prejudiced for the fault of the Department and he cannot be denied his remedies because of the reason that he could not perform an impossible task. Accordingly, this writ petition is disposed of.