Allahabad High Court: This petition was filed before a Single Judge Bench of Saumitra Dayal Singh, J., dealing with the issue of limitation period under Section 107 of UP Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.
Facts of the case were such that petitioner’s goods were subjected to seizure proceedings under Section 107 of the Act, 2017. Petitioner contended that penalty order as a consequence of seizure was not served on him by the Assessing Authority and the same was delayed. As soon as he received the order he filed appeal under Section 107 of the Act. This appeal was dismissed being time barred. According to Section 107(1) limitation period was three months from the date of communication of the order which can be condoned for not more than one month.
The issue before the Court was that whether the petitioner would have a right of appeal beyond 30 days from the date of the penalty order or 30 days from the date of service of that order on the driver of the truck who was found to be transporting the goods belonging to the petitioner-assessee.
High Court was of the view that considering the filing of an appeal to be condoned for not more that one month the phrase “communicated to such person” appearing in Section 107(1) of the Act shows that the order be necessarily brought to the knowledge of the person who is likely to be aggrieved. Therefore, limitation period would start from the day the petitioner got to know of the penalty order for filing appeal. [S/S Patel Hardware v. Commr. (State GST), 2018 SCC OnLine ALL 3059, order dated 10-12-2018]