Tripura HC in the case of Tirthamoyee Aluminium Products Versus State of Tripura

Case Covered:

Tirthamoyee Aluminium Products

Versus

State of Tripura

Facts of the Case:

Brief facts are as under:

Petitioner is a proprietary concern and is engaged in the business of manufacturing aluminum utensils and its unit is located at Agartala. The petitioner purchased certain aluminium products from Hindalco Industries Ltd. which is a Government of India company for a sum of Rs.19,46,014/- and would be supplied from Kolkata to be transported to Agartala by road. The invoice was generated by the Hindalco on 25.10.2018 which showed that the goods would be transported from Howrah west, Kolkata and would be delivered at the petitioner‟s unit at A.D Nagar Industrial Estate, Agartala. Hindalco also issued a Test Certificate and Packing Slip of the goods under transportation which gave a full breakup of the number of items, their weight, chemical compositions as also the number of the truck in which the goods would be transported. In terms of the provisions of the GST Act and Rules thereunder, the consignor also generated the E-way bill from the official portal of the State agencies on 25.10.2018. According to the petitioner, due to a clerical error, the distance from the place of origin to the ultimate destination i.e. from Howrah to Agartala was shown as 470 Kms. instead of the actual distance which was 1470 Kms. The petitioner would point out that as per sub-rule (10) of Rule 138 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017, a transporter would have the time of one day to transport the goods for every 100 Kms. of distance require to be travelled. The system thus automatically generated the validity period of five days for the E-way bill since the distance, as noted earlier, was erroneously shown as 470 Kms. instead of 1470 Kms.

Observations:

In view of such facts, we do not find that it is a fit case where we should relegate the petitioner to appeal remedy, more importantly when the order passed by the Inspector of State Tax suffered from a gross irregularity of no hearing been granted to the petitioner. As noted, the said authority issued a notice of personal hearing making it returnable on 19.11.2018, long before that however, on 05.11.2018 i.e. a date on which he issued the notice, he passed a separate order confirming the demand of tax with a penalty. This was wholly impermissible since he does not treat this order as a tentative demand but as a mandatory demand.

The Decision of the Court:

As a result, the impugned order dated 05.11.2018 is set aside. The petition is disposed of accordingly. Pending application(s), if any, also stands disposed of.

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