The Delhi High Court has declined to halt GST adjudication merely because a taxpayer said its audit-stage reply received inadequate consideration.
Dhruv Medicos challenged an audit report and a Section 74 show-cause notice, arguing that officials had addressed its response in only one sentence. A division bench of Justices Anil Kshetrapal and Bharat Parashar said the statutory duty to consider a taxpayer’s reply remains mandatory. But whether that consideration was sufficient, and what effect the objections deserve, can be decided by the adjudicating authority.
The judges left open the company’s arguments on limitation, jurisdiction, computation and an alleged coerced deposit of ₹40.10 lakh. They directed the authority to examine those issues independently and stressed that the court had expressed no view on their merits.
The ruling distinguishes an alleged defect in an audit process from the later adjudication of tax liability. A brief audit response alone did not justify quashing the notice before the specialist statutory process had run its course.