GST Appeal Can’t Be Refused Due to Non-Uploading of Form DRC-07 on Portal | Biz Flow Kit

The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court recently passed a very crucial judgment stating that a GST appeal simply cannot be rejected just because the assessee couldn’t file it electronically due to the non-availability of Form DRC-07 on the official GST portal.

The court pointed out that the appellate authority completely missed out on applying the proviso to Rule 108 of the CGST Rules, 2017, which actually allows for manual filing when such technical roadblocks happen.

The division bench, comprising Justice Urmila Joshi Phalke and Justice Nivedita P. Mehta, took note of a very interesting fact. The appellate authority had itself recorded in its notes that the petitioner was entirely unable to submit the appeal electronically. Why? Because Form DRC-07 was just not available or uploaded anywhere on the GST portal.

But even after acknowledging this obvious technical glitch, the authority still went ahead and rejected the taxpayer’s genuine request for a manual filing. They did this by relying solely on the strict wording of Rule 108(1) of the CGST Rules, 2017, which strictly mandates the electronic filing of all appeals using Form GST APL-01.

The case was originally brought forward by Dinesh Dnyandeorao Pawade, who is the proprietor of Ms Dinesh Traders. He filed a legal challenge against this rigid appellate order that denied his request to manually file his GST appeal.

Important: Delhi HC: GST Demand Order Valid Despite Late Uploading of Form DRC-07 If E-Mail Service Is Proven

The specific order he was challenging basically claimed that since Rule 108(1) strictly requires appeals to be filed through the electronic route, and because DRC-07 was unfortunately unavailable on the portal, his whole application to get the manual filing accepted was deemed non-considerable and thrown out.

However, the High Court judges observed that the appellate authority completely overlooked a very important legal loophole, specifically the proviso to Rule 108. The Court even went on to reproduce this exact proviso in their ruling.

It clearly provides that in situations where the certified copy of a decision or order is submitted manually within seven days from the date of filing Form GST APL-01, the official filing date will actually relate back to the original provisional acknowledgement date. This legally recognises that there are definitely real-world situations where manual filing might become absolutely necessary.

The Court made a very specific observation here. They stated that this specific proviso is meant exactly for instances where manual filing is required because the appeal just cannot be filed electronically, largely because the specific order that is sought to be challenged is just not available on the common portal in Form DRC-07.

Read Also: Bombay High Court: No GST Recovery Until Appeal Window Closes

The bench firmly held that the impugned order was totally unsustainable in the eyes of the law. This is mainly because the lower authority blatantly ignored the clear statutory proviso, even while openly acknowledging the massive technical impossibility that was faced by the petitioner.

As a direct result of these findings, the entire matter was remanded back to the Joint Commissioner (Appeals) so that it could get a proper, fresh consideration right in the light of the proviso to Rule 108.

The Court strictly directed the authority to decide on this issue expeditiously and officially allowed the writ petition. This judgment is incredibly significant and acts as a massive relief for many taxpayers who are currently facing endless technical difficulties on the GST portal.

This is particularly true in frustrating cases where appeal filing becomes totally impossible just due to the non-uploading or non-availability of crucial adjudication orders, such as DRC-07.

Ultimately, this powerful ruling heavily reinforces a core legal principle: mere procedural requirements under the GST law absolutely cannot defeat a citizen’s substantive appellate remedies, especially when unavoidable technical glitches on the government portal are what actually prevent electronic compliance in the first place.