The Kerala High Court dismissed the appeal against the assessment order under the Central Goods and Service Tax Act ( CGST Act ), 2017 on the availability of statutory remedy. The court viewed that the petitioner instead of approaching the Appellate Authority under Section 107 of the GST Act, had approached the Court invoking the public law remedy, which may not be available to the petitioner.

Sunil Kumar K, the petitioner is a dealer under the provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act/ Kerala State Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The petitioner challenged the assessment order. One of the contentions raised by the counsel for the petitioner is that under Section 146 of the GST Act, the Government is required to notify the Government Portal to upload the orders, notices etc.

But till date no such Government Portal has been notified, and therefore, the petitioner could not access the impugned order on the website. There is no dispute that the order was available on the website and the petitioner could have accessed the order by mentioning the registration number and the petitioner himself has admitted that the petitioner downloaded the impugned order from the website. Therefore, the contention raised by the petitioner is liable to be rejected at the threshold.

The single bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh found that the petitioner instead of approaching the Appellate Authority under Section 107 of the GST Act, had approached the Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India invoking the public law remedy, which may not be available to the petitioner in view of the specific provision of appeal against the impugned order. The court dismissed the writ petition. Bobby John and S Ajayghosh Kumar appeared for the petitioner. Thomas Mathew Nellimoottil and Reshmita Ramachandran appeared for the respondent.