Penalty Under Section 122(1)(xiv) Where E-Way Bills Are Missing but Tax Is Paid
This article considers whether the penalty under Section 122(1)(xiv) is a single flat amount or is multiplied by the number of invoices when supplies were disclosed and fully taxed but travelled without e-way bills.
It matters because audit reports under Section 65 are increasingly framed invoice by invoice, and a per-invoice multiplication can produce a penalty far out of proportion to any revenue loss. The reading below is an interpretation of the text, not a judgment or circular, and no case law is cited for it.
The issue
In a departmental audit under Section 65 of the JKGST Act, invoices were compared with GSTR-1 and the tax paid in GSTR-3B. Some supplies were fully disclosed and taxed, and buyers had claimed input tax credit that could be verified through GSTR-1 (B2B) and GSTR-3B. Only the e-way bill was missing. The draft audit report proposed a separate penalty under Section 122(1)(xiv) on each such invoice.