Krishi Vistar Kendra v Union of India: Chhattisgarh HC on Writ Bar After GST Appeal Limitation Expires

M/S Krishi Vistar Kendra v Union of India is a 2026 Chhattisgarh High Court ruling that addresses a recurring pressure-point in GST litigation: whether a taxpayer who has missed the statutory appeal window under Section 107 of the CGST Act can invoke the High Court's writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution to challenge a demand order. The court's answer — an unequivocal no — reinforces the principle that extraordinary constitutional remedies cannot be used to resurrect a statutory right that has already lapsed by limitation.

This page is a research summary of one specific Indian tax judgment, NOT legal advice. Always verify against the full judgment and consult a professional for case-specific guidance.

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The case at a glance

• Parties: M/S Krishi Vistar Kendra vs Union Of India
• Bench: Chattisgarh High Court
• Date: 10 March 2026
• Court level: High Court
• Sections engaged: 73, 75
• Outcome: Revenue succeeded

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Facts of the case

M/S Krishi Vistar Kendra is a sole proprietorship registered under GST in Chhattisgarh, engaged in wholesale and retail trade of agricultural products. On 29 April 2024, the State Tax Officer, Ambikapur Circle 1 (Respondent No. 3) scrutinised the petitioner's return for Financial Year 2019-20 and issued a notice in Form GST ASMT-10 alleging discrepancies. On 30 May 2024, a show cause notice in Form GST DRC-01 was issued under Section 73 of the CGST Act proposing a demand of Rs. 33,96,162/- along with interest and penalty for the period April 2019 to March 2020. On 28 August 2024, the order-in-original was passed in Form GST DRC-07, confirming a total demand of Rs. 64,94,320/-.

Recovery proceedings were initiated on 21 January 2025 and the petitioner's bank account was attached. The petitioner then filed a rectification application under Section 161 of the CGST Act on 2 March 2025, which was rejected by order dated 7 October 2025. The petitioner filed the present writ petition before the Chhattisgarh High Court on 27 February 2026 — well after the three-month appeal period (with a further one-month condonable window) prescribed under Section 107 of the CGST Act had expired from the date of the original order, 28 August 2024.

Before the court, the petitioner's counsel argued that the orders impugned were passed in violation of the principles of natural justice, specifically that the petitioner was not afforded a personal hearing as mandated under Section 75(4) of the CGST Act, and that merely granting an opportunity to file a reply could not substitute the mandatory requirement of a personal hearing. It was further argued that the rectification order was non-speaking, vague, and cryptic, and that the petitioner had no other alternative or efficacious remedy available.

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Issues raised

• Whether a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is maintainable where the petitioner has allowed the statutory appeal remedy under Section 107 of the CGST Act to become time-barred.
• Whether the extraordinary writ jurisdiction of the High Court can be invoked to circumvent the prescribed limitation period for statutory appeals under the CGST Act.
• Whether the failure to avail the statutory remedy within the stipulated time — and the subsequent approach to the High Court only after the limitation period had expired — amounted to delay and laches sufficient to disentitle the petitioner to relief.
• Whether the petitioner's substantive grievances regarding violation of natural justice under Section 75(4) of the CGST Act and the allegedly non-speaking rectification order could be entertained in these circumstances.

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What the court held

The writ petition was dismissed. The operative disposition, as recorded in the court's order, is that the petition suffers from gross delay and laches, and that Article 226 of the Constitution cannot be invoked to revive a remedy which has become barred by limitation under the statute.

The court found that the order-in-original was passed on 28 August 2024 under Section 73 of the CGST Act confirming the demand against the petitioner. Under Section 107 of the CGST Act, the petitioner had a statutory remedy of appeal within the prescribed limitation period of three months, extendable by a further one month on sufficient cause being shown. The petitioner did not avail this remedy within the stipulated time and instead approached the High Court by way of the writ petition after the statutory remedy had become time-barred. The court noted that the petitioner had declared in paragraph 7 of the writ petition that there was no delay — yet failed to demonstrate why the appeal was not preferred within the prescribed period.

The court placed reliance on the Supreme Court's ruling in Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Health Care Limited — which appears in the source text — and adopted its holding that where a writ petitioner approaches the High Court after expiry of the maximum limitation period prescribed for filing an appeal, the High Court cannot disregard the statutory period for redressal of grievance and entertain the writ petition as a matter of course. The court held that it is well settled that where a statute provides for a specific remedy along with a prescribed period of limitation, the same must be availed within the time stipulated, and that entertaining a writ petition filed to circumvent the statutory scheme would defeat the very object of the limitation framework under the CGST Act.

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Strategy observations

1. The petitioner's writ petition was filed on 27 February 2026, approximately eighteen months after the order-in-original dated 28 August 2024. The court recorded this timeline explicitly and found no explanation offered for why the statutory appeal under Section 107 was not filed within the prescribed window — a gap that proved fatal to the petition's maintainability.

2. An additional ground raised before the court was the alleged violation of Section 75(4) of the CGST Act — the personal hearing requirement. The court disposed of the petition entirely on the delay and laches ground, rendering the Section 75(4) argument academic; the merits of the natural justice challenge were not addressed.

3. The petitioner had filed a rectification application under Section 161 of the CGST Act on 2 March 2025, which was rejected on 7 October 2025. The court's analysis makes clear that pursuing the rectification route did not toll or reset the limitation clock for the statutory appeal under Section 107 — the original order-in-original remained the reference point for computing the appeal period.

4. The respondent-State relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Health Care Limited (2020) 19 SCC 681 — cited verbatim in the source order — and the court expressly adopted that precedent's holding on the writ bar after expiry of statutory appeal limitation. This precedent's application in the GST context is now reflected in this Chhattisgarh HC ruling.

5. The court's formulation — that entertaining such a writ petition would defeat the statutory scheme — signals that substantive infirmities in the demand order (including natural justice violations) will not, by themselves, be sufficient to overcome a limitation-based objection to writ maintainability where the petitioner has permitted the appeal window to close.

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Why this case matters

This ruling is a clear articulation of the limitation-bar doctrine in the GST writ context. The Chhattisgarh High Court's dismissal on delay and laches grounds — without going into the merits of the Section 73 demand or the Section 75(4) hearing grievance — confirms that the CGST Act's statutory appeal mechanism under Section 107 is the primary and exclusive remedy once an order-in-original is passed, and that the prescribed limitation period is not an elastic timeline that can be revived through constitutional litigation.

For researchers tracking GST writ jurisprudence, the case illustrates how courts apply the Glaxo Smith Kline principle to foreclose High Court intervention where the taxpayer has allowed the statutory appeal to lapse. The ruling also highlights the practical significance of the three-month (plus one-month) window under Section 107 of the CGST Act: in this case, a demand confirmed at Rs. 64,94,320/- — nearly double the originally proposed amount — went uncontested through the statutory channel, and the subsequent writ attempt was barred entirely on procedural grounds, leaving the merits of the natural justice challenge unexamined.

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Source

This case is drawn from the TaxNoticeAI structured legal corpus (16,101 Indian tax judgments, CBIC circulars, ITAT rulings, AAR rulings, GSTAT rulings), sourced from indiankanoon.org and official court portals. Original document: https://indiankanoon.org/doc/114573939/