The Kerala High Court directed to issue materials to file rely to the show cause notice ( SCN ) in the matter regarding an allegation of wrong availment of IGST refund. The petitioner has approached the Court being aggrieved by the fact that Exts.P3 and P4 notices have been issued to the petitioner alleging the wrong availment of IGST refund.

It is the case of the petitioner that, the petitioner is not able to ascertain with certainty the basis for the issuance of the show cause notices. It was submitted that there a reference in the notices to certain information provided to the department by the Commissioner of Customs, which seems to have concluded that the petitioner has wrongly availed the IGST refund and that the materials, which form the basis of the show cause notices, have not been supplied to the petitioner.

It was submitted that even the copy of the letter of the Commissioner of Customs, which is referred to in the notices, has not been supplied to the petitioner, and yet the petitioner is called upon to file a reply to the notices.  A Single Bench of Justice P Gopinath observed that “Therefore, this writ petition will stand disposed of directing that, the petitioner or an authorized representative of the petitioner shall appear before the officer, who issued show cause notices at the designated time on 30-01-2024. On that date, it is open to the petitioner to file a request detailing the documents that are required by the petitioner for the purposes of filing a proper reply to the notices.

The officer shall consider the request for providing documents and shall provide such documents to the petitioner within a reasonable time.” “After serving the documents requested for, on the petitioner, the petitioner shall be given a further time of two weeks to reply to the show cause notices. Thereafter the matter shall be adjudicated by the competent officer in accordance with the law and after affording an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner” the Court noted.