Page 35 - GSTL_7th May 2020_Vol 36_Part 1

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Delhi HC allows pre-GST credit claims till June 30

Businesses that have tax credits from before the Goods and Services Tax
(GST) came into effect will be able to claim them till June 30. This comes after the
Delhi High Court rejected the Revenue Department’s argument that these could
have been taken within three months of the rollout The case relates to Rule 117 of
the CGST Act, which imposed a time-limit of 90 days for claiming transitional
Cenvat credit, said Abhishek Rastogi, Partner at Legal Firm Khaitan, and Coun-
sel for the petitioner. GST was rolled out on July 1, 2017. The Court held that the
time-limit prescribed was directional and not mandatory. In a virtual hearing,
the Court held that a period of three years would be available for claiming the
credits in line with the provisions of the Limitation Act. The Court also ruled that
this period would be available to not only the petitioner but to all entities that
have Cenvat credit till June 30, 2017. According to industry experts, there are
around 10,000 such entities.
[Source : Business Standard, New Delhi, dated 6-5-2020]

Vacancies in Tribunals a perennial problem, attend to it :
SC to Government
The Supreme Court on 5-5-2020 quizzed the Government over the delay
in filling up vacancies in various Tribunals and asked it to “urgently attend” to
this.
“We will ask the Solicitor General to take instructions.... It is a perennial
problem...Tribunal functioning has come to a stand-still,” a Bench of Justices
Ashok Bhushan, S.K. Kaul and B.R. Gavai observed as it extended by three
months the tenure of National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
(NCDRC) Member V.K. Jain. Jain’s tenure was to end on May 29. Senior Advo-
cate Parag Tripathi submitted that there are seven vacancies in NCDRC at pre-
sent - three judicial and four non-judicial posts - against the Commission’s sanc-
tioned strength of 11.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said he has informed the Government of
this and urged the Court to continue the interim order in the meanwhile.
He agreed it is a problem that needs to be attended to.
Justice Kaul said, “You keep forum to take away work from judiciary but
then you do not man them and they come to a stand-still.... It is creating a prob-
lem and we must express out displeasure at this; this should be attended to ur-
gently.” The Court also flagged the delay in appointment of judges whose names
have been already cleared. Referring to vacancies in various High Courts, Justice

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