Jharkhand High Court: A Division Bench of H.C. Mishra and Deepak Roshan, JJ., set aside the impugned orders and directed the Assessing Authority to re-examine the claim of the petitioner in view of original tax invoices.
The facts of the case were that the petitioner has claimed Input Tax Credit (ITC) to the tune of Rs 5,34,22,304.71. The assessing officer had allowed ITC only to the tune of Rs 3,40,37,182.46 and denied the balance ITC claim on the ground that for this amount, JVAT 404 form was not submitted by the petitioner.
The counsel for the petitioner submitted that as per provision of Section 18(6) of the JVAT Act, 2005, claim of ITC of the petitioner was required to be considered by the assessing officer on the strength of tax invoices in originally produced by the petitioner showing payment of tax. However, the said claim of the petitioner was denied by the Assessing Officer by relying upon Rule-35(2) of the JVAT Rules, 2006 which apart from prescribing the condition of original tax invoices also lays down additional condition of producing a declaration in Form JVAT 404. The contention of the petitioner is that Rule 35(2) of the JVAT Rules, 2006 provides for furnishing declaration Forms JVAT 404 for availing benefit of ITC to the extent that it cannot be treated to be mandatory in nature but as directory in nature, especially in view of fact that Section 18(6) of the JVAT Act, 2005 does not provide for furnishing of JVAT 404 forms for the purpose of claiming benefit of ITC and it only contemplates production of tax invoices in original.
In view of the above, the court held that the instant matter is squarely covered by the judgment of Brahmaputra Metallics Ltd. v. State of Jharkhand, 2019 SCC OnLine Jhar 816 allowed by this Court vide order dated 09-07-2019 and directed the respondent to re-examine the claim of the petitioner towards its claim of ITC in respect of which the petitioner has not submitted JVAT-404 Forms, by verifying the said claim from tax invoices in original containing particulars of sale evidencing the amount of input tax paid and if satisfied, extend the benefit of ITC to the petitioner.[Simplex Infrastructures Ltd., Ranchi v. State of Jharkhand, 2019 SCC OnLine Jhar 1059, decided on 20-08-2019]