In two appeals, the GST Appellate Tribunal, Lucknow upheld Section 129(3) penalties, restoring a ₹47,11,649 order on lead ingots and confirming ₹39,74,712 against a transporter carrying undocumented garments.
Carrying a tax invoice and e-way bill does not protect goods in transit from penalty under Section 129 of the UPGST Act where the documents do not correspond to the goods actually found, the Lucknow Bench of the GST Appellate Tribunal has held in two appeals [Ajendra Kumar Tripathi v. Bajaj Enterprises, 2026-juristway.com-3192-GSTAT(Lucknow)-GST; Bahadur Singh v. Himanshu, Joint Commissioner State Tax & Ors., 2026-juristway.com-3193-GSTAT(Lucknow)-GST].
Both appeals were heard by Santosh Kumar Srivastava, Member (Judicial), and Arvind Kumar, Member (Technical). The department’s appeal succeeded in the first, and a transporter’s appeal failed in the second.
Bajaj Enterprises. A truck carrying 27,839.900 kg of lead ingots under the trader’s invoice and e-way bill was intercepted in Kanpur Dehat on 14 Feb 2020. The driver stated that the goods were loaded at three locations in Panki, not at the declared premises. Physical verification recorded 27,537.400 kg, a shortfall of 302.500 kg, with supplier-wise differences.
An e-way bill generated in one firm’s name had been cancelled and replaced by another firm’s e-way bill for the same invoice number and quantity. Tax and penalty of ₹47,11,649 were imposed under Section 129(3). The first appellate authority set this aside on 12 Mar 2020, treating the weight gap as minor and the e-way bill sequence as a clerical error.
The Tribunal held that “the mere production of an invoice, e-way bill and bilty does not render the accompanying goods immune from verification.” The objection that the weighing scale was not calibrated was raised after the event, with no supporting evidence, and the driver had signed the MOV‑04 report without demur.
Verma Enterprises (Uttarakhand High Court) was distinguished because the weight difference here came with other discrepancies. Raj Iron and Building Material v. Union of India was held to apply only to technical breaches. The Tribunal found intent to evade established and restored the original order.
Badri Vishal Goods Carriers. A truck stopped in Lucknow on 30 Apr 2026 carried papers for table tops, clips, tyres and medicines, none of which were on board. Instead, it held 23 categories of garments with no documents. A penalty of ₹39,74,712 was imposed under Section 129(3), treating the case as one where the owner had not come forward under Section 129(1)(b).
The transporter said a booking clerk had handed over the wrong bundle and later produced invoices of three Delhi suppliers. The Tribunal rejected the document-swap plea for want of manifests, dispatch logs, Fastag data or details of the supposed second vehicle. The later invoices were issued to unregistered buyers identified only by Aadhaar numbers, and no e-way bills had been generated.
“The law does not permit a system of ‘retrospective validation’,” the Tribunal held, adding that coming forward means appearing with valid, pre-existing documents at interception. M/s Khan Enterprises v. Additional Commissioner and M/s Riya Traders v. State of UP were distinguished, and market-based valuation using IndiaMart prices was upheld.
In both cases, the Section 129(3) orders now stand: the original order against Bajaj Enterprises is restored, and the penalty on the transporter is confirmed.
2026-juristway.com-3192-GSTAT(Lucknow)-GST | 2026-juristway.com-3193-GSTAT(Lucknow)-GST
