Writ jurisdiction barred as GSTAT becomes functional; statutory appeal with pre-deposit mandatory

Issue

Whether a Writ Petition is maintainable to challenge an appellate order on the ground of the non-constitution of the GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT), now that the Tribunal has been constituted and specific timelines (up to June 2026) have been notified for filing appeals.

Facts

Dispute Period: The case pertains to the period 2019-20.
Procedural History: The petitioner challenged a demand order (under Section 73) before the first Appellate Authority (Section 107), which affirmed the demand.
Writ Petition: Aggrieved by the appellate order and facing the non-constitution of the GSTAT, the petitioner filed a Writ Petition to seek relief, as the statutory second appeal forum was unavailable.
Government Notification: During the proceedings, Notification S.O. 4220(E) was issued, enabling the filing of appeals before the GSTAT. It provided a special window up to 30 June 2026 for orders communicated before 1 April 2026.
Department’s Stand: The Revenue argued that since the Tribunal is now functional (or the mechanism is notified), the petitioner must follow the statutory route, including making the mandatory pre-deposit.

Decision

Shift in Remedy: The Court held that while Writ jurisdiction was rightfully entertained during the phase when the GSTAT was non-functional (to prevent assessees from being remediless), this is no longer applicable.
Alternative Remedy Prevails: Once the appellate forum (GSTAT) is functional and timelines have been extended to accommodate past cases, the Writ jurisdiction must cede to the statutory appeal mechanism.
Direction to File Appeal: The petitioner was directed to approach the GSTAT.
Compliance is Key: The Court emphasized that strict compliance with the statutory pre-deposit is required. The writ court cannot be used to bypass this financial requirement.
Protection of Limitation: The appeal will be entertained by the GSTAT if filed within the notified extended timeline (i.e., by 30 June 2026 for older orders) and is otherwise in order.

Key Takeaways

End of “Non-Constitution” Writs: The window for filing High Court writs solely because “GSTAT is not there” has effectively closed with the notification of the Tribunal and the special filing window.
Specific Deadline: For all appellate orders passed and communicated before 1 April 2026, the deadline to file the appeal before GSTAT is 30 June 2026.
Pre-deposit is Non-negotiable: Taxpayers cannot use the transition period as an excuse to avoid the 20% (or applicable) pre-deposit required for the second appeal.

Would you like me to calculate the exact pre-deposit amount required if you provide the disputed tax figure?

HIGH COURT OF ORISSA

Cordant Engineerings India (P.) Ltd.

State Tax Officer, CT & GST, Bhubaneswar^*

Harish Tandon, CJ.
and MURAHARI SRI RAMAN, J.

W. P. (C) No. 91 of 2025

JANUARY 9, 2026

S.A. Mohanty, Adv. for the Petitioner. Sunil Mishra, Standing Counsel and S. Das, Addl. Standing Counsel for the Respondent.

ORDER

1. The petitioner has challenged the order dated 20^th January, 2022 passed by the CT and GST Officer, Bhubaneswar-III Circle, Bhubaneswar for the tax periods from April, 2019 to March, 2020 under Section 73 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017/the Odisha Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as “GST Act”), which was affirmed in an appeal by the Appellate Authority on 5^th September, 2023.

2. According to learned advocate appearing for the petitioner, although the remedy by way of an appeal is provided under Section 112 of the GST Act under the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) against the order in appeal, such remedy is not available as the GSTAT has not been constituted and made functional and, therefore, an aggrieved person cannot be rendered remediless.

3. Learned Standing Counsel appearing for the CT and GST Department corroborated the aforesaid stand of the petitioner so far as it relates to non-constitution and non-functional of the GSTAT, but arduously submits that it does not absolve the aggrieved person in complying with the mandate envisaged under sub-section (8) of Section 112 of the GST Act putting a restriction in filing the appeal unless the appellant paid in full, such part of the amount of tax, interest, fine, fee and penalty arising from the said order as admitted by him and a sum equivalent to ten per cent of the remaining amount of tax in dispute subject to a maximum of twenty crore rupees.

4. It would be apposite to quote the said provision, which runs thus:-

“(8) No appeal shall be filed under sub-section (1), unless the appellant has paid—

(a) in full, such part of the amount of tax, interest, fine, fee and penalty arising from the impugned order, as is admitted by him, and

(b) a sum, equal to ten per cent of the remaining amount of tax in dispute, in addition to the amount paid under sub-section (6) of Section 107, arising from the said order, subject to a maximum of twenty crore rupees, in relation to which the appeal has been filed.”

4.1. It has been brought to our notice that the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance issued a notification being S.O. No.4220(E) dated 17^th September, 2025 providing an opportunity to an aggrieved person to file an appeal in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of Section 112 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act. 2017 in the following:

“In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section(1) of Section 112 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (12 of 2017), the Government, on the recommendations of the Council, hereby notifies the 30^th day of June, 2026, as the date upto which appeal may be filed by the Appellate Tribunal under this Act in respect of all cases where the order sought to be appealed against is communicated to the person preferring the appeal before the 1^st day of April, 2026 and all appeals in respect of order communicated on or after 1^st April, 2026 may be filed before the Appellate Tribunal within three months from the date on which such order is communicated to the person preferring the appeal.”

4.2. Apropos the same and in order to facilitate smooth filing of an appeal before the said Tribunal, a “User Advisor for the GSTAT eFiling Portal” is also issued by the authorities containing the timeline within which the appeal can be filed before the GSTAT in the following:

“User Advisory for the GSTAT E-Filing Portal Please note that this advisory is only a snapshot for the entire appeal filing process. For detailed understanding and in order to have a seamless experience on the portal, users are advised to refer to the E-filing user manual, FAQs and user videos.

Important Timelines

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Staggered Filing Period (Until December 31^s, 2025):- The filing window for second appeals filing is based on staggering of the ARN/CRN offirst appeal filed in APL-01/03 before the Appellate Authority or the notice in RVN-01 issued by the Revisional Authority. The system first validates the ARN/CRN date and only upon successful validation of the date of the ARN/CRN of the APL-01/APL-03/RVN-01, the appellant can proceed further to Login/Registration. The schedule for filing is as follows:

TABLE

Sl. No.	Period of filing appeal in Form APL-01 or APL-03 under section 107 of the Act or issuance of notice in Form R VN-01 in terms of section 108 of the Act.	Period during which the appeal under section 112 of the Act before the GSTAT may be filed
1	Such orders of the Appellate authorities or revisional authorities sought to be appealed before the appellate tribunal where the Appeal in Form GST APL-01 or GST APL-03 or notice in Form GST RVN-01 filed or, as the case may be, issued on the common portal on or before 31.01.2022	Period commencing on 24.09.2025 and ending on 31.10.2025 or any date succeeding such date being not later than 30.06.2026
2	Such orders of the Appellate authorities or revisional authorities sought to be appealed before the appellate tribunal where the Appeal in Form GST APL-01 or GST APL-03 or notice in Form GST RVN-01 filed or, as the case may be, issued on the common portal on or after 01.02.2022 but on or before 28.02.2023	Period commencing on 01.11.2025 and ending on 30.11.2025 or any date succeeding such date being not later than 30.06.2026
3	Such orders of the Appellate authorities or revisional authorities sought to be appealed before the appellate tribunal where the Appeal in Form GST APL-01 or GST APL-03 or notice in Form GST RVN-01 filed or, as the case may be issued on the common portal on or after 01.03.2023 but on or before 31.01.2024	Period commencing on 01.12.2025 and ending on 31.12.2025 or any date succeeding such date being not later than 30.06.2026
4	Such orders of the Appellate authorities or revisional authorities sought to be appealed before the appellate tribunal where the Appeal in Form GST APL-01 or GST APL-03 or notice in Form CST RVN-01 filed or, as the case may be, issued on the common portal on or after 01.02.2024 but on or before 31.05.2024	Period commencing on 01.01.2026 and ending on 31.01.2026 or any date succeeding such date being not later than 30.06.2026
5	Such orders of the Appellate authorities or revisional authorities sought to be appealed before the appellate tribunal where the Appeal in Form GST APL-01 or GST APL-03 or notice in Form GST RVN-01 filed or, as the case may be, issued on the common portal on or after 01.06.2024 but on or before 31.03.2026	Period commencing on 01.02.2026 or any date succeeding such date being not later than 30.06.2026

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It may be noted that if an appeal before the GSTAT relating to any ARN/CRN could not be filed within the window scheduled for it, the appellant can still come on any subsequent date but before 30^th June, 2026.

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It may further be noted that appeals before the GSTAT against any order of the appellate/revisional authority in APL-04 that has been communicated on or after 1^st April, 2026 shall have to filed before the appellate Tribunal within three months of the order ofAPL-04 being communicated.

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Appeals before the GSTAT in cases where the appeal in APL-01/03 or notices in RVN-01 are not available in the GSTN system: for all the Appeals filed before the Appellate authority or notices of the Revisional authority where the ARN/CRN is not available in the GSTN system, the filing window will open from the midnight of 31^st December 2025 and will expire on June 30. 2026.

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Thus, users are strongly advised not to hurry since more than sufficient time has been provided for filing appeals before the GSTAT wherever the orders in APL-04 have been issued on or before 31^st March 2026.

***”

4.3. It is no longer res integra that the Writ Court can be approached assailing an order for which the forum of appeal is provided and the same is entertainable in the event the forum is not made functional or constituted as the person cannot be rendered remediless. Equally it is true that if conditions are attached to filing an appeal before such forum, the Writ Court shall ensure strict compliance thereof as a person cannot steal a march taking a shelter that there is no inhibition in the writ Court in entertaining the writ petition and passing an order taking departure from the said statutory provision.

5. Since the forum has already been provided in the statute, which is now made functional and the period for filing the appeal has been extended in a fragmented manner, it would not be proper for the Writ Court to keep such writ petitions pending as the dispute raised by the petitioner in the instant writ petition can be adjudicated by the said forum and, therefore, the writ petition is disposed of with the following directions:

The petitioner is directed to deposit the amount if not already deposited, as required under sub-section (8) of Section 112 of the GST Act before the GSTAT to file the appeal within the period specified in the timeline mentioned above.

II.

The petitioner, as undertaken, shall file appeal as per the timeline given in the “User Advisor for the GSTAT e-Filing Portal”.

III.

In the event the appeal is filed and the same is found to be in order as per the requirement of Section 112 of the GST Act read with relevant Rules framed thereunder, the same shall be entertained by the GSTAT.

6. This Court makes it clear that we have not expressed any opinion on the merits on the First Appellate Order. As a result of disposal of the writ petition, pending Interlocutory Application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.