The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside the State GST’s penalty of Rs. 682030 imposed on the government contractor despite paying GST tax.
The penalty imposed by order dated 25/5/2022 by the State GST Assistant Commissioner is set aside, the court order said.
The amount of penalty already deposited by the petitioner be refunded back to him within 30 days failing which it will carry 6% interest till the time of actual payment, the court order said.
A division bench of Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice PC Gupta held ‘the respondents could not establish that there exist any element of evasion of tax, fraudulent intent or negligence on the part of the petitioner’, the court order said.
The court order said ‘the delay of almost 4:30 hours before which E-way Bill stood expired appears to be bonafideand without establishing fraudulent intent and negligence on the part of petitioner, the impugned notice/order could not have been passed’.
The petitioner counsel Abhishek Dhyani said the respondents have failed to see that there was no revenue loss.
The intention of introducing E-Way Bill mechanism was to keep a check on the movement of goods without tax invoice or and to regulate tax evasion but penalty notice issued for expiry of E-Way Bill was unjustifiable and runs contrary to the scheme and object of said mechanism, the petitioner’s counsel said.
The petitioner a government contractor Daya Shankar Singh challenged the order issued by the State GST Assistant Commissioner for imposing penalty despite paying tax.
The petitioner procured TMT bars (iron bars) for construction of additional laboratory and class room at the premises of the State Government Chandra Vijay College, Dindori.
The truck carrying TMT bars on 18.05.2022 was travelling from Raipur (Chhattisgarh) to Dindori (Madhya Pradesh) suffered a technical problem and clutch-plates of vehicle got damaged, the same was repaired and the truck reached the destination in Dindori but while going for weighing the load, the State GST authority stopped the truck and checked the documents in which the authority found the E-Way Bill time to reach destination expired 4.30 hours prior to the time when the vehicle is checked, the petitioner counsel said.
The petitioner furnished the proof of documents about the truck repair but the authority rejected the claim and imposed fine, the petitioner counsel said.
