GST Appellate Tribunal - Recent Developments with Brief Landscape

 This update intends to provide you a brief landscape and recent developments w.r.t. GST Appellate Tribunal. The details are as under:

 

·            The Government has established the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (‘GSTAT’ or ‘Tribunal’) effective from September 1, 2023. In our view, this retrospective establishment of GSTAT is because of the things already done by the Government w.r.t. GSTAT. For example, the President of GSTAT, Principal Bench was appointed few months back.

 

·            Like VAT regime, every State will have their own State Tribunal Bench(es). Some of the States have more than one benches e.g., Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra etc. For details, you may refer Notification No. S.O. 3048(E) – Central GST dated July 31, 2024.

 

·            There will be one Principal Bench of GSTAT located at New Delhi. The importance of Principle Bench, inter alia, is the fact that this Bench will hear cases where “any one of the issues” pertains to Place of supply. Thus, if an order contains multiple issues and one issue is of place of supply, the entire matter will be heard at New Delhi by the Principal Bench irrespective of the adjudication jurisdiction.

 

One of reasons behind this can be the fact that allocation of GST funds between States is directly linked with place of supply of a transaction. Thus, the matter is to be decided by a Central level Tribunal. Kindly note that this reasoning is merely our personal understanding and not stated anywhere in the law.

 

·            Cases having disputed amount of more than ₹ 50 lakhs or involving question of law, will be heard by Division Bench. Other cases may be heard by a Single Member Bench subject to certain conditions.

 

·            The time limit for filing an Appeal before GSTAT is 3 months from the date of Impugned Order or the date to be notified, whichever is later. We can expect that it will be done soon. Thus, it is important to start drafting Appeals to avoid last minute rush given numerous orders being issued on a single entity.

 

·            The procedure to file Appeal is already notified vide. Notification No. 12/2024-Central GST dated July 10, 2024. The Appeal shall be filed in Form GST APL-05 and any Applications is to be filed in Form GST APL-07. A memorandum of cross objections shall be filed in Form GST APL-06.

 

·            The fee for filing Appeal would be in range of ₹ 5,000/- to ₹ 25,000/- depending on the amount of dispute.

 

The Appeal/Application can be withdrawn by filing Form GST APL-05W/07W. However, where the final acknowledgment of Appeal is issued by the Registry, the Appeal/Application shall be withdrawn subject to the approval of Tribunal