Goods in Transit — Section 129 of the CGST Act — The Petitioner a distributor of home appliances of various brands, challenged detention notice. It was found that the tax invoices furnished along with goods, carried serial numbers, they were not consecutive for the three invoices. Therefore, on suspicion that the invoices carrying the serial numbers in between the two sets of invoices indicated above might have been used for transportation of other goods that were not brought to the notice of the Department. The respondent referred Rule 46(1)(b) that specifies the requirement of a tax invoice containing a consecutive serial number not exceeding 16 characters in one or multiple series, to point out that in the instant case, the tax invoices did not contain a combination of alphabets, numerals, and specific characters. It is contended, therefore, that insofar as the tax invoices that accompanied the goods did not conform to the requirement of R.46, the detention could not be seen as unjustified.
Held that:- The Hon’ble High Court allowed the petition and directed the respondents to release the goods detained. The Court held that the entertainment of such a doubt by the authority cannot be a justification for detaining the goods, especially when they were admittedly accompanied by tax invoices as also e-way bills that clearly indicated the particulars that were required by Rule 46. The detention in the instant case cannot be justified under Section 129 of the Act.—Devices Distributors Vs. The Assistant State Tax Officer, Commissioner of State Gst Thiruvananthapuram, Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, Kozhikode [2020] 26 TAXLOK.COM 054 (Kerala)