Section 140 of the CGST Act, 2017 — Transitional Credit -- The petitioner challenged the the communication rejecting the application of the petitioner to revise the form TRAN-1. While attempting to complete the form TRAN-2, petitioner received an error message stating that it had not declared anything in Part 7B of Table 7(a) of form GST TRAN-1 and hence petitioner cannot fill details in Table 4 of TRAN-2. The petitioner submitted that the mix up of fields in the GST form occurred inadvertently, due to lack of awareness under a nascent legislation and the same ought not to be treated as fatal to the entitlement of the petitioner to obtain credit. The petitioner represented to the GST Council seeking redressal of its grievance. The petitioner was replied that the period for revising the declaration in form GST TRAN-1 was extended till 27/12/2017 and that no orders for extension of time have been permitted. The petitioner approached this Court and the court directed the nodal officer to take a decision on the representation, if filed. The petitioner preferred a representation, which was rejected. The court observed that as far as the GST regime is concerned, the period between 2017 and 2020 ought to be regarded as the nascent period of legislation. Admittedly several glitches had occurred even from the part of the Department. The said period was regarded by the courts as a ‘trial and error phase’ as far as implementation of the statute was concerned. The Department, which ought to have come to the rescue of the taxpayers, especially during the nascent stage of its legislation, has failed in respect of the petitioner to provide solution for the difficulty faced by it. The mistake was a bonafide error and arose on account of an error in perception and comprehension of minute details of the new formats to be submitted.

Held that:- The Hon’ble High Court set aside the order and directed the competent amongst the respondents to facilitate revising of form GST TRAN-1 submitted by the petitioner on 01-09-2017 and to file form GST TRAN-2 by making necessary arrangements on the web portal. If in case the same is not possible, to permit the manual filing of such returns by the petitioner, as expeditiously as possible, within a period of two months.