Alka Verma –
Published On: October 29, 2021 at 09:42 IST
On Thursday, the Supreme Court of India stopped the Telecom company Bharti Airtel from claiming ₹923 crore as a part of Goods and Services Tax (GST) Returns.
The Court also allowed the Appeal of Government challenging the 2020’s order of the Delhi High Court which permitted the Company to seek the amount of Rs. 923 crores as a part of GST Returns for July to September 2017.
The Government filed the Petition against four Respondents namely- Bharti Airtel, the GST Council through its Secretary, Commissioner through the Finance Ministry’s Department of Revenue Commissioner and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) via its Chairman.
In May 2020, the Delhi High Court asked the Government to refund the claimed amount to Bharti Airtel.
The High Court allowed the Plea of Bharti Airtel which was filed with the aim to get the returns from the Government.
During that Hearing the Bharti Airtel argued that it had already paid excess Tax of ₹823 crore as GSTR-2A form.
On the other hand, the Central Government stated that Bharti Airtel had under-reported input tax credit for the period between July 2017 and September 2017.
However, the Delhi High Court asked the Government to check the claim of excess GST within two weeks of the passed order and refund the amount to Bharti Airtel.
“Since there were no checks on Form GSTR-3B, which was manually filled by the Petitioner, the excess payment of tax went unnoticed. Airtel desires to correct its Returns, but is being prevented from doing so as there is no enabling statutory procedure implemented by the Government,” stated the High Court.
“The Respondents (read: Union of India) shall within two weeks, verify the (Airtel’s) claim and give effect to the same once verified,” added the Court.
However, the Central Government refused to accept the order of the High Court and challenged it in the Apex Court in July last year.
It should be noted here that after the order of the Apex Court, the shares of Bharti Airtel traded nearly 1 per cent lower at ₹696.25 on the BSE.