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2022 (3) TMI 1370 - HC - GSTTerritorial Jurisdiction - proper officer or not - Registration was assigned to Central GST Officer - SCN was issued and adjudicated by the State GST officer - validity of impugned show cause notice and the impugned assessment order - HELD THAT:- It is admitted fact that the taxpayer i.e. the petitioner has been assigned to the Central Officer whereas the impugned show cause notice was issued by the State Officer i.e. the respondent no. 4 ( Dy. Commissioner, Commercial Tax Saharanpur, Sector 10, Saharanpur (B), Uttar Pradesh) before whom, despite show cause notice, the petitioner did not raise any objection as to the jurisdiction and instead participated in the proceedings and submitted to his jurisdiction. Thereafter the respondent no. 4 passed the impugned assessment order creating certain demand against the petitioner. It is thereafter that the petitioner filed the present writ petition and challenged the show cause notice and the assessment order solely on the ground that it is without jurisdiction. It is clear that the proper officer as defined under the CGST Act and UPGST Act, both are proper officers within their territorial jurisdiction and have been conferred with jurisdiction and powers under both the Acts to exercise their jurisdiction as proper officers subject to a rider that if an order is issued by a proper officer under the State Act or the Union territory Act on a subject matter then on the same subject matter, order shall not be passed by a proper officer under the CGST Act and vice versa and the orders so passed shall be intimated to the other jurisdictional officer under the other Act - Since proper officers under both the Acts have been empowered to exercise powers within their territorial jurisdiction and since both the set of officers i.e. under the CGST Act and UPGST Act are authorized to pass assessment orders, therefore, there arose necessity for division of work between two sets of officers, i.e. under CGST Act and UPGST Act having same territorial jurisdiction. A proper officer under the UPGST Act/CGST Act has inherent jurisdiction over assessees falling within his territorial jurisdiction but that jurisdiction has to be exercised as per cases assigned by the designated committee comprising Chief Commissioner/Commissioner, Commercial Taxes of respective States and jurisdictional Central Tax Chief Commissioners/Commissioners. In the present set of facts, the Chief Commissioner of Central Taxes, Lucknow and Meerut Zone, Lucknow and the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, U.P. issued the aforesaid order no. 04/2018 assigning the taxpayers to proper officers and the case of the petitioner has been assigned to the proper officer under the CGST Act i.e. Central Officer and not to the respondent no. 4. Present case is not a case of inherent lack of jurisdiction rather it is a case of error of jurisdiction on account of non allotment of case of the petitioner assessee to the respondent no. 4/State officer. The respondent no. 4 being proper officer under the Act having territorial jurisdiction over the petitioner assessee is competent to exercise the powers conferred under the Act in respect of assessee, falling under his territorial jurisdiction. But as per minutes of the meeting of the G.S.T. Council and the circular issued in this regard, the distribution of work for administrative convenience was made and as per which the case of the petitioner was assigned to a central officer. Thus it is not a case that the state officer i.e. the respondent no. 4 lacks inherent jurisdiction but it is a case where the jurisdiction has been exercised by the respondent no. 4 in the absence of any objection or pointing out by the petitioner that the case has been assigned to a central officer - the impugned show cause notice and the impugned assessment order do not suffer from any inherent lack of jurisdiction and instead it is the result of contributory error of jurisdiction by the respondent no. 4., in the circumstances that the petitioner submitted to the jurisdiction of the respondent no. 4 without informing or without raising objection as to the assignment of the case to the central officer and after well participating in the assessment proceedings allowed the assessment order to be passed by the respondent no. 4. The writ petition is dismissed.
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