The apex court’s decision will give relief to many businesses who were fighting lawsuits against the government over tax credits from the previous regime of excise duty and service tax that they could not avail of after the shift to GST.
The court has directed the government to allow for filing of the relevant forms for a period of two months from 1 September, experts said. According to Abhishek Jain, tax partner at KPMG in India, this decision comes in the light of an ongoing dispute wherein several tax payers had contested that these forms could not be filed in a timely manner due to technical glitches, and even otherwise their right to transition the credit cannot be denied to them.
“This is a golden opportunity for the industry players irrespective of whether they were a party to the writ petition or not, and all businesses should look at any pre-GST credit that was not duly transitioned, in light of this SC judgement," said Jain.
An email query to the finance ministry remained unanswered till press time.
Experts said the apex court order means that the relief applies to all assessees, irrespective of whether they have filed a writ petition or not.
