GST DRC-01 and DRC-07 Notices/Orders Served Beyond the Portal

The ensuing one year or so is going to be a year of notices and Orders under GST as multiple years assessments gets time barred.

As per Section 169 of The CGST Act 2017, GST Notices under DRC-01 or Order in DRC-07 can be served by hand delivery, or by registered post, or by e-mail, or uploaded on the GST Portal or affixing in the last place of business.  However, such Notices & Orders served on e-mail on many occasions go in junk mail and taxpayers cannot trace it.  High Courts have also ruled that uploading the GST notice/Orders in the "View additional notices/orders" Tab instead of "View notices & Orders" Tab is also irregular services and so is the service of notice to a driver of vehicle. Service of notice to advocate with POA also sometimes gets lost or are not traceable. These matters on the one hand create hardship for taxpayers, on the other hand it makes it difficult for the Dept. to trace these and lastly also leads to unnecessary litigation. 

To remove this hardship The CBIC has issued Instruction 04/2023 dated 23rd Nov. 2023 wherein it has held that under section 52, section 73, section 74, section 122, section 123, section 124, section 125, section 127, section 129 and section 130 of the CGST Act, a notice is required to be issued by the proper officer to a person for demand and recovery of any amount of tax not paid or short paid/ amount of input tax credit wrongly availed/ amount of refund erroneously made, for recovery of interest and/ or for imposition of any penalty or fine on the said person. However, as per Rule 142(1) of the CGST Rules a summary of such notice is also required to be served by the proper officer electronically on the portal in FORM GST DRC-01. Similarly as per Rule 142(5) of CGST Rules, where any order is issued by the proper officer under section 52 or section 62 or section 63 or section 64 or section 73 or section 74 or section 75 or section 76 or section 122 or section 123 or section 124 or section 125 or section 127 or section 129 or section 130 of CGST Act, summary of such order is also required to be uploaded electronically on the portal by the proper officer in FORM GST DRC-07, specifying the amount of tax, interest and penalty, as the case may be, payable by the person concerned.

However some of the field formations are serving such notices and orders manually only and are not serving the summary of the notices issued under section 52 or section 73 or section 74 or section 122 or section 123 or section 124 or section 125 or section 127 or section 129 or section 130 of CGST Act, electronically on the portal in FORM GST DRC-01, or are not uploading the summary of the order issued under section 52 or section 62 or section 63 or section 64 or section 73 or section 74 or section 75 or section 76 or section 122 or section 123 or section 124 or section 125 or section 127 or section 129 or section 130 of CGST Act electronically on the portal in FORM GST DRC-07. 

Non-issuance of the summary of such notices/ orders electronically on the portal is in clear violation of the explicit provisions of CGST Rules.