The Madras High Court comprising Justice C. Saravanan has held that the Goods and Service Tax (GST) department can continue service of the physical copy of the notice through registered post, speed post, or courier with acknowledgment to the assessee at their last known place of business or residence and upload the notice on the web portal. Once all technical problems are resolved, the practise of sending physical copies may be dispensed with.

The petitioners/assessees have challenged the assessment order and recovery proceedings issued consequent to the assessment orders on the grounds that assessment orders have been passed without proper service of Show Cause Notices and without giving adequate opportunity to reply to the Show Cause Notices, amounting to the violation of principles of natural justice.

Counsel for the department has submitted that notices were uploaded on the web portal of the State Government, i.e., tngst.cid.tn.gov.in. 

Counsel for the department further added that the notices and other orders were uploaded on the web portal and were auto-populated on the GST web portal maintained by the Central Government. Therefore, the petitioners could not state that the show cause notices had not been served. Once the notices are auto-uploaded, information will be available in the dashboards of the assessees and registrants, and therefore, it was not open for the petitioners to state that neither the Show Cause Notice nor the order had been communicated to them.

The court observed that the web portal maintained by the GST department has faced problems on several occasions and steps were taken to correct technical glitches. Even as on date there were problems arising out of inter-communication between State GST and Central GST and web portals.

The court has remitted the matter to the department to pass an order speaking on merits and in accordance with the law and directed the petitioners to file a reply to the Show Cause Notice.