Section 54 of the CGST Act, 2017 —– Refund - The petitioner challenged the action of the respondent authority in non-issuance of the refund of IGST along with the interest. The court observed that it appears to be the difficulty at the end of the GST network or some error in the software itself which would require a cure. When nothing is being disputed and for two of the tax invoices the refund has already been credited in the account of the petitioner, this appears to be a short coming of the software itself. Everything since is being done electronically and this automatically grant of refund after validating the shipping bill data available in ICS, if there is any difficulty at the level of the mismatch or the processing of the claim of the refund, it becomes a duty of the GSTN to look into the same. In many of the matters, on one hand there is laudable objectives of making it all system driven and on the other hand the limitations of the system which are otherwise required to be addressed to at the level of the GSTN. There is some kind of apathy.

Held that:- The Hon’ble High Court directed that refund be paid along with interest at the rate of 6% and with all consequential benefits within a period of two weeks and further recommended that if the authority concerned deems it appropriate, let there be a direct communication also with the GSTN in the portal itself which could be also response based. Therefore, instead of the individual department pleading through their senior through the GSTN, the Assessee of those consultants and others could communicate with the GSTN on portal if a feature like “MAY I HELP YOU” is created by the authority on due deliberation or through the “Grievance Reddressal Mechanism”.