Supreme Court Directs Assessee to Exhaust Statutory Appeal Remedy under Section 107 of GST Act

In a recent legal development concerning the procedural hierarchy of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, the Supreme Court of India has reaffirmed the necessity for assessees to utilize standard appellate channels before approaching higher courts. In the matter of Super Service Point Vs Union of India & Ors., the Apex Court permitted the withdrawal of a Special Leave Petition (SLP), granting the petitioner liberty to file a statutory appeal under Section 107 of the Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.

This ruling underscores the judiciary's reluctance to entertain writ petitions or special leave petitions when an effective alternative remedy exists within the statute itself.

Background of the Dispute

The legal controversy originated from proceedings initiated against the assessee by the GST authorities. The core of the dispute lay in the issuance of an Order-in-Original by the adjudicating authority.

The Challenge to Consolidated Orders

The assessee had approached the Gujarat High Court challenging an order passed under Section 74 of the CGST Act. The primary contention raised by the assessee was procedural in nature. The adjudicating authority had issued a consolidated order covering a multi-year period ranging from July 2017 to March 2022.

The assessee argued that the authority erred in passing a single cumulative order for five distinct financial years. According to the assessee's interpretation of the law, the adjudicating authority ought to have issued separate orders for each assessment period rather than clubbing them into a single adjudication order and the consequential GST DRC-07 demand.

The High Court's Refusal to Intervene

Upon review, the Gujarat High Court declined to entertain the writ petition. The High Court's decision was not based on the merits of the "consolidated vs. separate order" argument, but rather on the maintainability of the writ petition itself.