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The Calcutta High Court set aside a GST adjudication order and a decision refusing to condone the petitioners’ appeal delay in Silicon Ceramics & Ors. v. Additional Commissioner of State Tax, WPA 9470 of 2026. It directed a fresh hearing on the merits after the petitioners submit their reply and supporting documents. The court did not decide whether the underlying GST demand was correct.
What happened in the GST notice dispute?
The show-cause notice was dated 29 August 2023 and required a reply by 29 September 2023. The personal-hearing date and venue fields reportedly stated “Not Applicable.” The petitioners said the notice appeared only in the portal’s “additional notices” section and was overlooked. An order in original followed on 3 October 2023, recording that they had not replied. TaxGuru’s reproduction of the order describes these circumstances.
After learning of the original order, the petitioners appealed and asked the Additional Commissioner of State Tax, Asansol Circle, to condone the delay. On 12 February 2026, the Commissioner rejected that request, reportedly on the basis that the statute did not permit the authority to extend the appeal-filing period. The petitioners then challenged both the rejection and the original adjudication order before the High Court.
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What did the High Court order?
The court set aside both challenged orders. It directed the authority to consider the dispute on its merits after receiving the petitioners’ reply and evidence, and to provide a hearing in person or through authorised representatives. During that adjudication, the authority was not to reject the petitioners’ contentions on limitation grounds. The challenge to the original order was to be considered without going into limitation.
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The court set two successive deadlines:
- The petitioners had to reply to the show-cause notice and submit supporting documents within four weeks from the date of the High Court order.
- The authority had to hear them within four weeks after receiving that reply and those documents.
The reproduced order states: “Petitioners shall reply to the show-cause notice along with all documents in support thereof within a period of four weeks from date.” The judge’s name and the order date are not identified in the reproduced text, so the four-week periods should be read as running from the date of that order, not from the dates of the earlier GST proceedings.
Does this mean a notice in the additional portal section is invalid?
No. The decision is a fact-specific remand, not a general ruling that notices placed in an “additional notices” section are legally invalid or that every recipient who misses one is entitled to the same result. The court’s reasoning, as reproduced, addresses the admitted portal location and the possibility that these petitioners overlooked the notice and consequently lacked an opportunity to reply.
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The practical lesson is to check all relevant notice and communication areas in the GST portal rather than relying on a single section. If a notice appears to have been missed and an order has followed, this judgment shows that a recipient may ask a court to consider the circumstances—but it does not guarantee a fresh hearing in another case.
What the ruling does—and does not—decide
The petitioners regained an opportunity to answer the notice and have their documents and contentions considered by the tax authority. The High Court did not rule on the correctness of the GST demand, decide the tax merits in the petitioners’ favour, or replace the authority’s fresh adjudication with its own assessment. The authority must consider the matter after the directed reply and hearing.
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