The petitioner is a pharmaceutical company. It took over the business of another pharmaceutical company. It applied for registration in 2020 and sought a refund of accumulated inverted input tax credit. It could not file a refund electronically (on the portal) as it was not registered during the period in question. Accordingly, it filed a manual refund application (through email). It came to be rejected. Such rejection was challenged in a writ petition.
The High Court of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla allowed the writ petition and set aside the refund rejection order. It held: (i) (i) manual applications can be accepted in terms of Rule 97A of the CGST Rules; relies upon the Hon’ble Bombay High Court in the Laxmi Organics case and the Gujarat High Court in the Ayana Pharma case; (ii) circulars issued by the CBIC cannot override the rules; (iii) any person under section 54(1) of the CGST Act can file a refund application and need not necessarily be a registered person; and (iv) imposes costs of Rs.10,000/- on the deputy commissioner who passed the impugned order for overlooking the rules.
AMN Life Pvt Ltd Vs Union of India & rs.—CWP No. 7919 of 2022 (Himachal Pradesh HC)
