UNION OF INDIA Vs. MERCHEM INDIA PVT LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant is aggrieved by the direction of the learned Single Judge to the IT Redressal Committee of the GST Council to consider petitioner's request for the transition of unavailed input tax credit in accordance with law.

(2.) The writ petition was filed by the respondent herein, seeking a direction for credit of the input tax balance lying in the writ petitioner's CENVAT Credit Ledger as on 30-06-2017 to its Electronic Credit Ledger under the GST regime. It was pleaded that, to avail the transitional benefit of transfer of unavailed CENVAT credit to the electronic credit ledger under the GST regime, the writ petitioner had attempted to file GST TRAN-1 Form on 26-09-2017, as per Ext.P3, though without success. Further attempts also ended in failure resulting in the writ petitioner unable to take credit of the input tax balance lying in its CENVAT credit ledger as on 30.6.2017 to the electronic credit ledger. Petitioner had received the communication "processed with error" while attempting to submit TRAN-1 Form and thereafter a complaint was sent by email to helpdesk@gst.gov.in. It was alleged that there was no reply and hence the writ petition was filed.

(3.) A statement was filed on behalf of respondents 5 and 6 pointing out that the attempt of the writ petitioner was to subvert the statutory limitation and that as per Rule 117 of the CGST Rules 2017, the electronic filing of Form TRAN-1 ought to have been done within the stipulated period of 90 days from 21-07-2017. It was further stated that, even though the last date for filing of the form was extended from time to time, the present attempt was highly belated. It was further stated that there was nothing on record to suggest that throughout the period from 01-07-2017 to 27-12-2017, petitioner had made any effort to file the TRAN-1 declaration.