Section 54 of the CGST Act, 2017 — Refund  –— The applicant prayed for directing the Respondents to sanction entire refund claim with interest to the Petitioner because the Petitioner is eligible for refund under the provisions of Section 54 of the Act. The applicant submitted that services provided to them qualifies as “Export of Services” and the service provider has wrongly levied and collected the IGST on these supply of services. The applicant was informed by the service provider that the IGST levied and collected has been deposited with the Government Treasury / Exchequer and they have neither claimed / filed any refund application nor received the refund from the Government of the disputed amount. In such circumstances the applicant has filed a claim for refund manually on 01.08.2020, which was rejected on the ground that the refund was to be filed online. The court observed that the respondent straight way rejected application on technical ground and has failed to assigned reasons. The impugned order is a non speaking order. Further, the respondent authority without giving any opportunity of hearing has straight way passed the impugned order on highly technical ground. The respondent authority acted dehors the basic principles of natural justice. The court relied on the decision of Bombay High Court in the case of Laxmi Organic Industries Ltd.

Held that:- The Hon’ble High Court set aside the order dated 2.12.2020 and directed the respondent to treat the manual application dated 01.09.2020 as an application for refund. The respondents are directed to decide and process the application of refund, by keeping in mind the observations made by this Court. Any order which may be passed on the refund application may be communicated to the writ applicant, within eight weeks.