The CBIC recently issued the Circular No.135/05/2020 – GST dated 31.03.2020, incorporating the direction of the Hon’ble Court in the Case of M/s Pitambra Books Pvt Ltd. W.P(C) No. 627 of 2019, wherein Court had passed an order Staying the Para 8 of the Circular No. 125/44/2019-GST dated 18.11.2019, (which had imposed the restriction that refund period/claim cannot spread across two financial years and refund claim had to be filed chronologically) and granted interim relief to the Petitioner to file manual refund application and had also directed the Government to either open the online portal so as to enable the petitioner to file the tax refund electronically, or to accept the same manually within 4 weeks from the Order.
The CBIC in the Circular No.135/05/2020 – GST dated 31.03.2020 while giving the reference of Case of M/s Pitambra Books Pvt Ltd. W.P(C) No. 627 of 2019 by citing the direction of the Hon’ble Court and noting that: “On perusal of the provisions under sub-section (3) of section 16 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and sub-section (3) of section 54 of the CGST Act, there appears no bar in claiming refund by clubbing different months across successive Financial Year” has removed the restriction on clubbing of tax periods across Financial Years and has modified the circular no. 125/44/2019-GST dated 18.11.2019 to the extent that the restriction on bunching of refund claims across financial years shall not apply.
The case has been argued by Adv. Puneet Agrawal and Adv. Yuvraj Singh
Link for Circular No. 135/05/2020 – GST dated 31.03.2020 is Circular_Refund_135_5_2020
Link for TaxSutra: http://gstsutra.com/news/9421/CBIC-allows-bunching-of-claims-across-FYs-refund-admissible-according-to-original-payment-mode
GST Law India is a blog on GST and allied commercial laws managed by members of the law firm ALA Legal.