Delhi High Court - Orders
Loksatya Media Private Limited vs Commissioner Of Central Goods And ... on 20 February, 2026
$~7
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ W.P.(C) 10548/2024
LOKSATYA MEDIA PRIVATE LIMITED. .....Petitioner
Through: Adv. (appearance not given)
versus
COMMISSIONER OF CENTRAL GOODS AND SERVICE TAX
DELHI EAST & ANR. .....Respondent
Through: Mr. Gibran Naushad, Senior Standing
Counsel with Mr. Harsh Singhal, Mr.
Suraj Shekhar Singh, Advs.
Mr. Harpreet Singhm Senior Standing
Counsel, Mr. Iqbal Singh Bedi, Ms.
Suhani Mathur, Mr Jatin Kumar Gaur,
Advs.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE NITIN WASUDEO SAMBRE
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY DIGPAUL
ORDER
% 20.02.2026
1. The respondent, Ministry of Finance, issued a notification dated 28th December, 2023, in the exercise of powers conferred under Section 168A of the CGST Act, notifying the date for the financial year 2018-2019 upto 30th April 2024.
2. In the aforesaid background, the Show Cause Notice ('SCN') issued to the petitioner on 11th December, 2023, was adjudicated, and it is the contention of the respondent that the order was uploaded a day before i.e. on 29th April 2024.
This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/02/2026 at 20:31:34
3. As against the above, the counsel for the petitioner questions the validity of the order, contending that it has lapsed as it was not passed within the statutory period of limitation.
4. He would claim that the order was available on the portal for the first time on 03rd May, 2024. According to him, as a necessary statutory corollary, the impugned order would lapse, and as such, it cannot be executed, nor can any liability cannot be fastened upon the petitioner.
5. We have considered the aforesaid contentions in the light of the respective affidavits of the respondents.
6. The counter affidavit in the form of preliminary submissions submitted by the Assistant Commissioner, CGST states as under-
"6. For purposes of further clarity, the following is the manner in which the Order came to be signed:
i.The concerned officer is required to affix his digital signature on the impugned order in eOFFIE_CBIC (which is an online file system) using their office computer system. In the present case the impugned order was singed on 29.04.2024 at 11:39AM.
ii.After affixing their digital signatures on the Impugned Order in eOFFICE CBIC, the order is then uploaded at the GST ACES portal by the inspector through the superintendent and thereafter it is sent to the competent authority (in the present case the Assistant Commissioner) for approval. iii.After approval of the same it is automatically uploaded on the OST portal and no further action is required thereafter. In the present case the order attained finality on 29.04.2024 and the same was uploaded on 29.04.2024 at 05:43 PM.
7. Therefore, clearly in view of the above, the said Order has been uploaded within the period of limitation as prescribed under sub-section 10 of section 73 of COST Act, 2017 and extended time to time by various notification(s) issued by the Government of India; and the contention of the Petitioner that the Order is beyond the period of limitation is misplaced on facts and law.
8. The Petitioner, to buttress its contentions, has annexed a copy of the screenshot of the OST portal which seems to suggest that the date of This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/02/2026 at 20:31:34 issuance of the Order was 03.05.2024. In this regard, it is submitted that the Order was issued on 29.04.2024; and the date 03~05.2024 does not reflect the date of issuance of Order but it is in fact the date on which the order was reflected on the Petitioner's GSTN portal."
7. The aforesaid aspect is further clarified by the short affidavit of the respondent who is working as Vice President (legal). The para 7 of the said affidavit reads thus:-
"7. Further, the G2G API submission and batch processing could not be completed on the same day, resulting in the observed gap between the officer's approval date (29.04.2024) and the date of availability of the order for the taxpayer on the GST portal (03.05.2024), as a result of incidents reported by the AJMT (Application Batch Job Monitoring & API Data Exchange Monitoring) from around 29th April 2024 till around 3rd May 2024. This caused a delay in submission due to bulk processing of error records and backlog clearance and, as a result, the subject data could not be processed for the taxpayer on the date of creation of the Form GST DRC-07 order. Thus, while the officer had issued Form GST DRC-07 on 29.04.2024, the actual date on which the order was uploaded to the GST portal and made available to the taxpayer, along with alerts through email and SMS notifications, was 3rd May, 2024, due to technical reasons explained above.
8. As such, drawing support from the scheme of Rule 142 which deals with the procedure to be adopted in matter of demand and recovery of taxes, it is urged that the order was signed, approved and uploaded on 29th April, 2024, and as such, is within the time specified in the aforesaid notification.
9. That being so, it is their contention that same has not been lapsed.
10. When we have looked into the aforesaid contention in the light of the pleadings in para 7, it appears that the respondents have admitted that there exists a gap in between the officer's approval date of 29th April, 2024, and the date of availability of the order for the tax-payer on the GST Portal i.e. 03rd May, 2024. The same was reportedly a result of an incident reported by Application Batch Job Monitoring and API Data Exchange Monitoring This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/02/2026 at 20:31:34 from around 29th April, 2024, until around 03rd May, 2024.
11. The same, according to the respondents, caused delay in the order being available on the portal due to bulk processing of error records and backlog clearance.
12. That being so, there is a delay in processing the subject data viz. the impugned order.
13. If the aforesaid contention are appreciated in the backdrop of sub-rule 5 of Rule 142 which reads thus:-
"(5)A summary of the order issued under section 52 or section 62 or section 63 or section 64 or section 73 or section 74 2[or section 74A] [or sub-section (12) of section 75] or section 75 or section 76 or section 122 or section 123 or section 124 or section 125 or section 127 or section 129 or section 130 shall be uploaded electronically in FORM GST DRC-07, specifying therein the amount of |tax, interest and penalty, as the case may be, payable by the person, concerned].
(6) The order referred to in sub-rule (5) shall be treated as the notice for recovery:"
14. It is apparent that it is the bounden duty of the respondent to upload electronically, in the form of GST DRC-07, specifying therein the tax, interest, and penalty, as the case may be, payable by the person concerned.
15. Under Sub-rule 6 of the said rule is treated for a notice for recovery.
16. The contention of the counsel for the petitioner, based on cumulative reading of Sub-rule (5) and (7), is that the order must be available prior to the 30th April, 2024 and not subsequent thereto, may be for whatever reason, including any technical failure of the system.
17. The counsel for the respondent has specifically tired to urge that once the order was approved on 29th April, 2024, there was a corresponding This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/02/2026 at 20:31:34 uploading on the system and the mandate under sub-rule (5) of Rule 142 is complied with and the duty was discharged.
18. If the order is available on the portal late in point of time, the remedy available to the petitioner is that of preferring an appeal within the time or the period stipulated under the appellate provision and such time shall start running from the date the order was available on the portal i.e. 03rd May 2025.
19. As such, his contentions are that there is no prejudice caused to the petitioner.
20. At this stage, both counsel submit that they be granted time to further clarify the issue.
21. Accordingly, list on 09th March 2026.
22. Order be uploaded on the website of this Court.
NITIN WASUDEO SAMBRE, J AJAY DIGPAUL, J FEBRUARY 20, 2026/sky/st This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 25/02/2026 at 20:31:34