After Cancellation Of GST Registration, Show Cause Notice Should Be Served Physically: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has recently held that adjudication notice ought to be served through physical mode after cancellation of GST registration, as the taxpayer cannot access the portal thereafter.

A bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Vivek Saran held:

“Once the registration is cancelled and the registered persons thus disabled from working on the Common Portal and in any case, are relieved of obligation to check the Common Portal thereafter, it is wholly natural and practical that any adjudication notice issued after cancellation of registration may be served through physically in terms of the provisions of Section 169 (1) (a) (b) of the U.P.G.S.T. Act, 2017.”

In this case, the petitioner's-Shri Dewan Publications GST registration was cancelled prospectively on September 20, 2019. Subsequently, the petitioner obtained a fresh GST registration to carry out trade. The petitioner was issued a show cause notice on May 30, 2024, on the erstwhile GSTIN for the financial year 2019-20.

Though it was uploaded on the common portal against the petitioner's existing GSTIN, it was pleaded that no notice of the adjudication proceedings and order dated 29.08.2024 was given to the petitioner.

The court observed:

“To the extent it does appear that the registration giving rise to the adjudication proceedings had been cancelled almost five years before the show cause notice came to be issued, adjudication proceedings may have proceeded solely on the strength of the service of the show cause notice through the common portal that too against the GST registration that stood cancelled from before.”

The court noted that the respondents in Bambino Agro Industries Ltd. vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr. had admitted that where GST registration has been cancelled, such persons may be proceeded with in adjudication proceedings only upon service of physical notice.

Accordingly, in the present case where the GST registration stood cancelled, the notice ought to have been served through physical mode, failing which it resulted in violation of principles of natural justice.

Accordingly, the court set aside the adjudication order and proceedings, with liberty to the respondent to issue a fresh notice through physical mode along with all documents sought to be relied on.

For Petitioner: Advocate Sumeet Mishra, Suyash Agarwal.