Patna High Court.
– Photo: Amar Ujala
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Patna High Court has given an important decision in a case of tussle between the Central and State Government regarding tax collection. Under this decision, the Bihar government will have to return Rs 52 crore 79 lakh 79 thousand 660 forcibly collected as tax to the Patna regional office of National Insurance Limited, a Government of India undertaking. The High Court has given this decision on the writ petition filed by the insurance company.
Know from the beginning what happened and how
Sanjay Kumar Mishra, the then Assistant Commissioner of Patliputra Zone, Patna, passed an order demanding Rs 52 crore 79 lakh 79 thousand 660 against the National Insurance Company under the Goods and Services Tax Act regarding tax, interest and penalty. National Insurance challenged this demand by filing an appeal under Section 107 of the Act with the Additional Commissioner of Goods and Services Tax (Central Division), Patna, but it was rejected in September 2022. The company challenged this in the Appellate Authority, but the matter remained stuck due to the non-constitution of the said authority. While filing the appeal in the Appellate Authority, the company paid 20% of the amount demanded under the provision of the Act, so that the recovery of the remaining amount is automatically postponed as per the rules. But, on January 5, 2023, the Goods and Services Tax Patliputra Zone issued a notice to the account holders of the insurance company, Bank of Baroda and HDFC, citing wrong provisions, to return the amount remaining after 20 percent, amounting to Rs 42 crore 07 lakh 86 thousand 307, to the department. Transfer it to. On this information, National Insurance Company filed a writ petition in Patna High Court on January 5 last year for immediate relief. Despite the information of the writ petition, the department extorted this remaining amount from the bank account of the insurance company.
What was the order of Patna High Court?
During the hearing of the writ petition, the Patna High Court had issued a personal notice to the extortion officer Sanjay Kumar Mishra and ordered him to file his affidavit. Now the division bench of High Court Chief Justice Krishnan Vinod Chandran and Rajeev Roy strongly criticized the alleged recovery action of the Goods and Services Tax Department of Bihar Government, terming it illegal and unfair. Ordered to return the recovered amount to National Insurance within two weeks. It has also been said in the order that if the recovered amount is returned after time, interest at the rate of 12 percent will also be charged. The division bench has also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on recovery officer Sanjay Kumar Mishra.