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2022 (2) TMI 999 - HC - GSTRefund of ITC - claim of the petitioner rejected on the ground that, before making this rejection in respect of the alleged inadmissible portion, no notice has been served on the petitioner, no opportunity was given to the petitioner to put forth his case and without even giving any reason as to why the particular amount has been inadmissible - violation of principles of natural justice - HELD THAT:- Insofar as the preliminary objection, which, in fact, is the main objection raised by the respondent side with regard to the latches, this Court feels that, though there is no limitation prescribed under Article 226 for the litigants to approach the High Courts by invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction to issue prerogative writs, it is the self made law or judge made law in various pronouncements of the Hon'ble Supreme Court as well as the various High Courts, that doctrine of latches would definitely be made applicable to cases where Article 226 is invoked belatedly without any plausible reason - what is the time limit which can be construed as a belated one or within the reasonable period, depends upon the facts of each and every case, as in these arena there is no hard and fast rule. Here in the case in hand, the Rule, as referred to above, mandates that, a notice should be issued in a particular format giving 15 days time to the applicant to respond in a particular format and only thereafter order to be passed either to accept or reject the refund claim made by the applicant - When such a mandate is available in the Statute, the same has not been followed by the respondents as there is no whisper to show that, there has been a chance of giving any show cause notice or notice or opportunity to the petitioner as contemplated under sub-rule (3) of Rule 92 of the said Rules. If we look at the impugned order for instance in the first case which facts were dealt with in the earlier paras that, the inadmissible amount of a sum of ₹ 58,233/- has been quoted, where, absolutely no reason has been given by the respondents as to why such amount has been not admitted. Only in order to avoid these kind of orders, the rule contemplates to give an opportunity to the applicant before passing an order to reject or accept. When that being so, in these cases, since there has been no notice issued to the petitioner before passing the order of rejection with regard to the refund either in full or in part, this Court has no hesitation to hold that, the impugned orders insofar as the rejected portion i.e., inadmissible portion of the refund claim made by the petitioner are infirm and vitiated - since the blatant violation of principles of natural justice and also the statutory mandate as contemplated under the Rule referred, these kind of cases are entertainable before this Court by invoking Article 226 of the Constitution of India and in these cases, the two years period cannot be construed as a long delay to invoke the doctrine of latches to reject the claim of the petitioner as canvassed by the learned Standing Counsel appearing for the respondents. In all these writ petitions, the impugned orders, insofar as the rejection made by the second respondent with regard to the refund claim made in respect of each of the cases, are hereby quashed - Petition disposed off.
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