Quietus to Rule 96(10): SC Confirms the Omission Applies to All Pending Proceedings

This article analyses the Supreme Court’s decision in Goodluck India Ltd. v. Union of India, examining the effect of omitting Rule 96(10) of the CGST Rules, 2017, on pending proceedings involving export refunds, recovery demands and tax disputes.

When Rule 96(10), Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 (CGST Rules, 2017) was finally omitted in October 2024, exporters exhaled — but only briefly. The department took the position that the omission was prospective, leaving thousands of legacy demands, refund rejections and recovery notices alive for the pre-omission period. On 6 August 2026, in Goodluck India Ltd. v. Union of India¹, the Supreme Court brought that debate to a close: The omission of Rule 96(10) applies to all pending proceedings, and legacy disputes built on the erstwhile rule must fall.

The rule that caused all the trouble

1. Section 16, Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (IGST Act) gives an exporter two routes to relief:

(a) export under letter of undertaking (LUT)/bond and claim refund of unutilised input tax credit (ITC) (the Rule 89 route); or

(b) export on payment of integrated goods and services tax (IGST) and claim refund of the tax paid (the Rule 96 route).

2. The second route is faster and, for many, more valuable. Rule 96(10) was an attempt to close that route to a large class of exporters — broadly, those who had procured inputs under concessional or exemption-based schemes, such as:

(a) export oriented units (EOUs) importing without payment of basic customs duty (BCD) and IGST (Notification No. 78/2017-Cus);

(b) advance authorisation holders importing without BCD and IGST (Notification No. 79/2017-Cus);

(c) deemed export procurements (Notification No. 48/2017-CT); and

(d) merchant exporters buying at the concessional 0.1 per cent rate (Notification Nos. 40/2017-CT(R) and 41/2017-IGST(R)).

3. In practice, the sub-rule generated exactly the kind of litigation it was designed to prevent — mismatches, recovery demands with interest, and a running dispute over whether foregoing only BCD (while paying IGST) took an exporter outside the bar. The controversy is one that has dogged exporters for years.

The “omission” — and the “prospective” flashpoint

4. Acting on the recommendation of the 54th GST Council meeting, the Government omitted Rule 96(10) through Notification No. 20/2024-CT with effect from 8 October 2024. While making that recommendation, it was recorded that the rule was leading to unnecessary complications without any intended benefit, and omission was recommended “with prospective effect”.

5. That single phrase — prospective — became the battleground. The department argued that pre-8 October 2024 demands survived; assessees argued that an omission without a saving clause wipes the provision off the statute book for all pending matters.

The High Court decisions

6. Initially, the Gujarat High Court upheld Rule 96(10) in Cosmo Films Ltd. v. Union of India². Soon after, the Kerala High Court, in Sance Laboratories (P) Ltd. v. Union of India³, struck the rule down as ultra vires Section 16, IGST Act and manifestly arbitrary, and quashed the demands founded on it; the Calcutta High Court, in Techno Waxchem (P) Ltd. v. Union of India⁴, took the same view for the pre-omission period. The Uttarakhand High Court in Sri Sai Vishwas Polymers v. Union of India⁵ set aside the demands following the Kerala High Court declaration and the omission.

7. After the omission with effect from 8 October 2024, a line of High Courts held that the omission operates on all pending proceedings and set aside the Department’s demands — the Gujarat High Court in Addwrap Packaging (P) Ltd. v. Union of India⁶, the Bombay High Court in Hikal Ltd. v. Union of India⁷, and the Andhra Pradesh High Court in BVL Granites v. Commr. of Central Taxes⁸.

8. These decisions, and the conflicting positions taken across the High Courts, were carried to the Supreme Court.

What the Supreme Court held

The Supreme Court in Goodluck India Ltd. v. Union of India held:

1. Omission without a saving clause obliterates the rule: Following the Constitution Bench in Kolhapur Canesugar Works Ltd. v. Union of India⁹, the Court reiterated the settled common law principle that deleting a provision erases it from the statute book as completely as if it had never existed. Section 6, General Clauses Act — which preserves pending action on repeal — applies to a Central Act or regulation, not to the omission of a rule (para 36 of the Kolhapur Canesugar case). Absent a saving clause or a deeming fiction, proceedings under an omitted rule cannot continue.

2. No saving clause, no sunset clause: As the learned Additional Solicitor General (ASG) fairly conceded, the legislature enacted neither a saving clause nor a sunset clause when it omitted Rule 96(10). On the Kolhapur Canesugar principle, that is decisive.

3. A Council recommendation is advisory, not binding: The recommendation that the omission be “prospective” is exactly that — advisory. It does not bind the rule-making authority, and the notification itself carried no such limitation. The court pointedly observed that if the rule was omitted to end unnecessary complications once and for all, the legislative intent could not have been to keep those very complications alive for pending matters.

4. The vires challenge falls away: Since the assessees had already secured the practical relief they sought, their special leave petitions (SLPs) were dismissed as infructuous. The vires of Rule 96(10) therefore remains judicially untested at the apex level.

What this means for exporters

The practical fallout is substantial and immediate:

Concluding remarks

With this decision, the Supreme Court has effectively brought quietus to the protracted litigation surrounding Rule 96(10). The net effect is finality. The omission of Rule 96(10), unaccompanied by any saving or sunset clause, operates on all pending proceedings; and demands, refund rejections and recovery actions founded on the erstwhile rule can no longer be sustained. For exporters, a restriction that spawned years of avoidable disputes now stands buried; for the department, the direction is to bring the remaining proceedings to a close rather than prolong them. The chapter on Rule 96(10) may, at last, be treated as shut.