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In a big setback to Bharti Airtel, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the telecom major’s claim for a refund of Rs 923 crore by rectifying its GST returns for July to September 2017.
A bench presided over by Justice A M Khanwilkar set aside the Delhi High Court’s order passed on May 5, 2020 that allowed Sunil Bharti-led Airtel to rectify Form GSTR-3B for the period, saying such directions ‘cannot be sustained’.
Tax authorities, for their part, denied any refund alleging that Airtel had under-reported input tax credit during the period. The company, on the other hand, claimed it had paid excess tax of Rs 923 crore on inputs based on estimates since the GSTR-2A form was not operational during the error period.
The apex court said that the law permits rectification of errors and omissions only at the initial stages of Forms GSTR-1 and GSTR-3 in a specified manner, thus Airtel cannot be permitted to unilaterally carry out rectification of its returns submitted electronically in Form GSTR-3B, which inevitably would ‘affect the obligations and liabilities of other stakeholders, because of the cascading effect in their electronic records’.
‘Any unilateral change in such return as per the present dispensation would have a cascading effect on the recipients and suppliers associated with the concerned transactions. There would be complete uncertainty and no finality could ever be attached to the self-assessment return filed electronically,” the bench, also comprising Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, said.
Agreeing to the contention of the Union government, the court said any indulgence shown contrary to the statutory mandate would not only be an illegality but in reality, would simply lead to a chaotic situation and collapse of tax administration of Union, States and Union Territories.
