M/s VISION ACADEMY v. STATE TAX OFFICER & ORS.

Introduction

This judgment of the Kerala High Court explains the operation of Section 62 of the CGST Act relating to Best Judgment Assessment in cases of non-filing of returns. The Court held that where a registered person furnishes the pending returns within the statutory period contemplated under Section 62, the best judgment assessment automatically loses its legal basis. Merely because Form GST ASMT-13 was generated earlier, the assessment cannot survive if the notice itself was uploaded only later and the returns were filed before such uploading.

The Court emphasized that the effective communication of the statutory notice is crucial. Since the petitioner filed all the pending returns before the uploading of Form GST ASMT-13 and the consequential DRC-07 orders, the best judgment assessments were held to be unsustainable. However, the Court clarified that the taxpayer remained liable to pay statutory interest on the admitted tax.