The Court held that a reply filed manually during personal hearing is a valid representation which the Proper Officer is duty-bound to consider, and that the absence of an upload on the GST portal cannot be used as a pretext to treat the taxpayer as if no reply was ever filed.
The Orissa High Court has set aside an Order-in-Original passed under Section 74 of the CGST Act, holding that the Superintendent committed a gross violation of natural justice by ignoring a reply manually filed and acknowledged during personal hearing, and by passing the adjudication order prematurely before the date granted for document production had expired [M/s. Chandan Patra v. Union of India and Others].
The petitioner, a works contractor, was served with a demand-cum-show cause notice under Section 74 seeking recovery of ₹8,83,021 in GST. After adjournments, a personal hearing was held on 27 January 2026, during which the petitioner appeared, advanced oral arguments, and filed a detailed written reply which was manually received and acknowledged by the Superintendent. Further time was granted until 13 February 2026 to produce additional documents. However, without waiting for that date and without considering the reply already on record, the Superintendent passed the Order-in-Original on 4 February 2026. The order stated that the noticee had failed to appear on any scheduled date and had not produced any reply — a statement directly contradicted by the Superintendent's own signature of acknowledgment on the reply document.
Justice Murahari Sri Raman, delivering the judgment, conducted a thorough analysis of the statutory provisions and the natural justice framework. Drawing on Section 74(9) of the CGST Act read with Rule 142(4) of the CGST Rules, the Court observed that while the show cause notice is required to be uploaded electronically in Form DRC-01, the statute does not impose a mandatory requirement that the reply in Form DRC-06 must only be uploaded electronically. Relying on the Madras High Court decisions in Boldrocchi India Private Limited and Asia (Chennai) Engineering Company, the Court held that whether the assessee files a reply electronically or manually, the Assessing Officer is duty-bound to consider it. Form DRC-06 is a procedural tool designed to facilitate adjudication, and cannot be weaponised as an absolute bar to deprive a taxpayer of the statutory right to defend.
The Court also drew attention to the Supreme Court's recent observations in GR Infra Projects Limited v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2026) and Tata Steel Limited v. Union of India (2026), which held that a bland recitation of the words "fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts" without listing out the foundational facts that persuaded the assessing officer to reach such a conclusion cannot sustain a notice under Section 74. The Court left the jurisdictional question open for the petitioner to raise upon remand. The matter was remitted for fresh consideration with directions for the petitioner to appear within fifteen days and for the authority to conclude proceedings within eight weeks, with a clear direction that all material — whether submitted electronically or manually — must be taken on record and considered.
2026-juristway.com-2842-HC(Orissa)-GST | High Court of Orissa | W.P. (C) No. 12771 of 2026 | 07.10.2026
