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2021 (11) TMI 935 - HC - GSTRejection of the petitioners claims for budgetary support under a “Scheme of Budgetary Support under Goods and Service Tax” regime - rejection on the ground that the claims were made for the period prior to the registration which is impermissible - HELD THAT:- Notification dated 05.10.2017 is a Scheme of Budgetary Support under Goods and Service Tax regime to the units located in the States of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and North East including Sikkim. In pursuance of the decision of the Government of India to provide budgetary support to the existing eligible manufacturing units operating in the states under different industrial promotion schemes of the Government of India, for a residual period for which each of the units is eligible, a scheme was introduced as a measure of good will. It was stated that the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the administrative department, had issued Notification dated 05.10.2017 which had come into operation with effect from 01.07.2017 and shall remain in operation for the residual period. Budgetary support under the scheme shall be worked out on quarterly basis and claims for the same shall also be filed on a quarterly basis. It was also specified that the eligible units was required to obtain one time registration and file an application for payment of budgetary support which shall be processed by the Deputy/Assistant Commissioner of the Central Taxes for sanction of the admissible amount. The sanction amount shall be credited into bank accounts of the beneficiaries through PFMS platform of the Central Government. Paragraph 6 thereof, which is pressed by the petitioner, states that the claim for the quarter ending September, 2017 has already become due. In order to mitigate the difficulties of the eligible units, it has been decided that units would be registered on the basis of application filed by them manually and application of claim for budgetary support for the said quarter would also be filed and processed manually. From the circular dated 27.11.2017 it is clear that although the claim for the quarter ending September, 2017 had already become due “In order to mitigate the difficulties of the eligible units” it was decided that those eligible units would be registered on the basis of application filed by them manually and application for claim for budgetary support for the said quarter (i.e., quarter ending September, 2017) would also be filed and processed manually. Reading the Standard Operating Procedure even for the first quarter ending September, 2017 it is clear that registration under the GST is a necessary prerequisite for the scheme and the UID would be issued only after registration - an argument is sought to be made that if such an application is presumed to have been made even then the petitioner failed to follow up the application. Quite evidently, the manual application 12.12.2017, although permitted under the circular dated 27.11.2017, was not processed for registration by the respondents. Quite evidently although the application for registration and issuance of UID made by the petitioner had been received by the respondent No. 3 on 12.12.2017, the authority neither registered the petitioner nor rejected the application compelling the petitioner to reapply for the same electronically pursuant to which registration and UID was granted on 31.10.2018. The fact that registration and UID was granted makes it evident that the petitioner was eligible for the budgetary support under the scheme. Quite clearly the Respondent No. 3 failed to process the application for registration as required. Since, the Respondent No. 3 failed to grant the registration to the petitioner, although it was an eligible unit, the petitioner could not have made their claims for budgetary support before being allotted the UID - As the respondents have rejected the claims of the petitioner on the technical ground, it is directed that the authorities shall process the four claims made by the petitioner for budgetary support and sanction reimbursements as found eligible within three months from the date of this judgment. Petition allowed.
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