The Gujarat High Court clarified that the issuance of notice by revenue departments through messaging services like Whatsapp, Telegram and Signal was prevalent at the time of Covid only as per the judgment of the Supreme Court, and such service of notice was to be in addition to email and other regular modes of postal services such as Speed Post and Registered AD.

The bench of Justices Sonia Gokani and Sandeep N Bhatt observed this while setting aside a decision taken by a city unit officer of GST department to cancel the GST registration of an entity as violation of right to natural justice principle.

The court asked the department to reissue the notice on the official email ID provided by the firm and through RPAD. It also asked it to provide a reasonable opportunity of hearing to the applicant and to pass appropriate speaking order on merit which would be done physically.

Petitioner Neha Enterprises registration was cancelled by the department on May 22, 2022 without providing an opportunity of hearing. The firm’s lawyer Maulik Nanavati had submitted that the department had served notice on the Whatsapp number of the firm owner and that it didn’t mention the name and designation of the person issuing the notice before whom the assessee needed to appear. Such issuance of notice is invalid as per statute, he said.

However, the department defended that the notice was issued and decision to cancel the registration was taken as the place of business was found closed and non-functioning during a spot inspection. The firm was allegedly engaged in a bogus billing transaction of total taxable value of Rs 14.98 crore.

After hearing both sides, the HC found that the show-cause notice was “hollow and shaky”. It is a “cryptic one line” notice. The court also did not accept the contention that the notice couldn’t be uploaded because of a technical glitch. The court quashed the notice looking at the surrounding circumstance.

In a parting note, the bench clarified about the SC judgment which had given liberty to the revenue departments during the Covid pandemic only. It needs to be mentioned that much was debated on issuance of this notice through Whatsapp and reliance is placed on the decision of the apex Court.