AO Can’t Attach Property of Assessee if He Has Already Made Requisite Pre-deposit While Filing Appeal | HC

Case Details: Tvl. Maxtile AAC Block v. State Tax Officer - [2024] 162 taxmann.com 266 (Madras)

Judiciary and Counsel Details

• Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy , J.
• G. Derrick Sam & Adithya Reddy for the Petitioner.
• T.N.C. Kaushik, AGP (T.) & P. Anantha Kumar, GA (T.) for the Respondent.

Facts of the Case

The petitioner was a taxable person and an order was issued against it by confirming tax proposal pertaining to discrepancy between GSTR-3B returns and auto populated GSTR-2A. It filed an appeal against the said order and made requisite pre-deposit as per Section 107 of CGST Act, 2017. However, the department attached immovable property of petitioner even before expiry of statutory period of three months after order was issued. It filed writ petition seeking release of attachment and contended that such attachment was contrary to statutory provisions.

High Court Held

The Honorable High Court noted that the recovery measures should not be undertaken for a period of three months after the order in original is issued so as to enable the tax payer to file a statutory appeal. In the present case, the petitioner had placed on record the order in original and proof of filing of the appeal. It was evident that the petitioner had made the requisite pre-deposit of 10% of the disputed tax demand as per Section 107 of CGST Act, 2017.

However, without waiting for statutory period of three months, the department had attached immovable property of the petitioner. Therefore, it was held that the attachment was contrary to the statutory prescription and the department was directed to release the attachment over the immovable property.