What the First GSTAT E-Journal Volume Tells Practitioners About Demands, ITC and Procedure
This article reviews ten orders reported in Volume I of the GSTAT E-Journal, which covers judgments of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal up to 31 August 2026, and sets out the points of law each order settles for the Bench concerned.
For close to nine years after GST began, the law developed mainly through High Court rulings, advance rulings and departmental clarifications. With the Tribunal now deciding appeals, practitioners have a first body of appellate reasoning on fact-finding, limitation-type safeguards and the limits of the adjudicating officer's powers. Each order below binds only the parties and, as of now, it is not addressed whether other Benches will follow it or whether any has been appealed. The volume carries twenty regular GST decisions in addition to anti-profiteering matters; the ten discussed here are those with the widest bearing on day-to-day litigation.
Demands founded on return mismatch
Difference between GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B
In Sterling & Wilson Pvt. Ltd. v. Commissioner, Odisha, (2026) 1 GSTAT E-Journal 1 (Principal Bench), the department pointed to a difference of about Rs 27.06 lakh between GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B. The assessee's explanation was that debit notes, credit notes and adjustments had been recorded in the books but not properly carried into the returns.
The Tribunal held that Section 74 is available only where the department can show fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts. A mismatch can prompt an inquiry, but it does not by itself establish those ingredients. Two further points follow from the order:
- Where the extended-period ingredients are not made out,
Section 75(2)requires the demand to be redetermined by the Proper Officer on the footing ofSection 73. The appellate authority cannot carry out that redetermination itself. - The Tribunal is the last forum for findings of fact and can examine the facts afresh.
The practical consequence is that a failed Section 74 case does not simply end the matter; the file goes back for a Section 73 determination, and the assessee should be ready with the reconciliation of credit and debit notes for that exercise.