Calcutta High Court | While deciding an intra-court appeal wherein it was alleged that three wings of the same department viz. Audit Commissionerate, Anti Evasion wing and Range Office have proceeded against the appellant at the same time, a Division Bench comprising of TS Sivagnanam* and Supratim Bhattacharya, JJ., held that the Anti Evasion wing and Range Office shall not proceed any further till the proceedings under S. 65 CGST Act, 2017 reach the ‘logical end’.
The appellants alleged that three wings of the same department have initiated actions against the appellants for the same financial years 2017- 2018, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. First to initiate action was the Audit Commissionerate which issued notice to the appellants on 9.11.2021 under S. 65 of the CGST Act, 2017. The appellants, while accepting two of the four issues pointed out in the said notice remitted the necessary tax along with the interest and submitted their reply for the remaining two points. The appellants further submitted that in the meantime, Anti Evasion wing and Range Office also commenced their proceedings for the same time period.
The standing counsel owed this simultaneous initiation of actions by three wings of the same department to lack of awareness of the proceedings by other wings to each of them. The Court at this instance observed that “It is not clear as to why in the present days of electronic communications available in the department, such parallel proceedings can be conducted by three wings of the same department for the very same period.”
The Court, while allowing the appeal, restrained the Anti Evasion wing and Range Office from proceeding further against the appellants for the same financial years for which already action has been initiated. The Court further directed the Audit Commissionerate to issue show cause notice to the appellants within a period of six weeks from the date of the order and provide them with a reasonable opportunity to submit their reply.
[R. P. Buildcon (P) Ltd. v. Superintendent, CGST & CX, 2022 SCC OnLine Cal 3108, order dated 30.09.2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr Ankit Kanodia, Ms Megha Agarwal and Mr Jitesh Sah, Counsel for the Appellants
Mr K. K. Maiti, Counsel for the Respondent No. 1
*Ritu Singh, Editorial Assistant has put this report together.