Know why Patna High Court allowed the rectification of form GSTR 3B on par with the contents of GSTR- 1

Patna High Court: In the instant Civil Writ Petition, wherein the issue was whether the petitioner could be allowed to rectify his form GSTR 3B in accordance with GSTR 1; the Division Bench of P. B. Bajanthri* and S. B. PD. Singh JJ., allowed the petitioner to amend his GSTR 3B after placing reliance on Supreme Court’s decision in Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs v. Aberdare Technologies Pvt. Ltd.¹ wherein the Court had affirmed Bombay High Court’s decision to allow the taxpayer to rectify the clerical error.

Background

The petitioner operated a business dealing with two-wheelers in the State of Bihar. He purchased the vehicles from manufacturers located outside Bihar. While filing Form GSTR 3B on 20-06-2019, he committed an error while filling out the total taxable value column. Thus, the total taxable value and total integrated tax did not match his GSTR 1 form filled out on 10-05-2019. He filed a grievance with the Central Board of Excise and Customs to rectify the same. By an order dated 06-05-2020, his application for rectification was rejected. Since there was no system of rectification he was advised to pay the tax and then claim a refund of the same. The petitioner filed the current petition against this order requesting to allow correction in his GSTR 3B form as per his GSTR 1.

Analysis vis-a-vis Rectification/Amendment of GSTR 3B

The Court noted that there is no system of rectification once a return is filed. The Court cited the Bombay High Court’s decision in Aberdare Technologies (Supra)². A similar situation concerning the rectification of GSTR 1 and GSTR 3B arose in the above case and the Bombay High Court allowed the rectification which was affirmed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court while affirming the High Court’s decision to rectify a clerical error, stated that, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, must re-examine the provisions/timelines fixed for correcting the bonafide errors. The Supreme Court had emphasised that, human errors and mistakes are normal, and errors are also made by the Revenue. “Right to correct mistakes in the nature of clerical or arithmetical error is a right that flows from right to do business and should not be denied unless there is a good justification and reason to deny benefit of correction”.

By placing reliance on the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the Bombay High Court’s decision, the Court set aside the order dated 06-05-2020 while directing the concerned authorities to rectify form GSTR 3B on par with the contents of GSTR-1 within one month from the date of receipt of the instant order.

[Om Traders v. Union of India, Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.16509 of 2024, decided on 13-05-2025]

*Judgment by Justice P. B. Bajanthri

Advocates who appeared in this case :

For the petitioner: D.V. Pathy, Sadashiv Tiwari, Hiresh Karan, Shivani Dewalla, Prachi Pallavi, Advocates

For the respondent: Anshuman Singh, SR. SC, CGST and Vikas Kumar, SC-11