He Delhi High Court stated that two adjudication orders are not permissible against a show-cause notice during the same period.

The division bench Justices Yashwant Varma and Ravinder Dudeja was dealing with a case where a show cause notice had been issued to the assessee under Section 74 of the CGST Act, 2017. This notice was duly adjudicated by the department, resulting in an order.

The appraiser filed an appeal against this order, which was pending before the competent official. However, during the pendency of the appeal, the department re-adjudicated the same show cause notice and issued a subsequent order (dated 23.04.2024) based on the same allegations, in the same article, raising the same demand.

The assessee submitted that both the orders have the reference of the same show cause notice, which means that issuance of second order (dated 23.04.2024) is nothing but double jeopardy. The issuance of a second order in the same show cause notice is nothing but gross abuse of power by the department as the order was passed without legal authority and without any basis or reasoning.

The court stated that “We take note of what prima facie appears to be an apparent error underlying the approval of the impugned order of April 23, 2024, a decision that pertains to the tax period from July 2018 to March 2019……….However, to Although said procedures culminated in the approval of a final order, the challenged order dated April 23, 2024 has been reframed as pertaining to the same tax period and referring to the original Show Cause Notice dated December 30. of 2020………”

The court opined that the second order is not sustainable.

In view of the above, the Court admitted the petition and annulled the second order.

Counsel for the petitioner/assessee: RP Singh, Anant Vijay and Yash Agarwal

Counsel for the Respondent/Department: Udit Malik and Vishal Chanda

Case Title: M/s Jain Cement Udyog (through its owner Sh. Sanjay Jain) vs Sales Tax Officer Class II

Case number: WP(C) 12860/2024

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