The Supreme Court has stayed the Delhi High Court order, allowing Bharti Airtel to claim Rs 9.23 billion in tax refunds by rectifying its goods and services tax (GST) returns for July to September 2017. The refund was denied earlier by the revenue authorities.
The apex court has also sought a response from Airtel and has posted the matter for final disposal in the first week of March 2021.
Earlier, the government had contended that Bharti Airtel had under-reported input tax credit from July to September 2017. To this Airtel reverted by saying that it had paid excess tax of Rs 9.23 billion on inputs based on estimates since the GSTR-2A form was not operational during the error period.
The High Court upheld Airtel’s argument and noted that the telco would have known the correct input tax credit (ITC) amount available to it in the relevant period, if the statutorily prescribed returns GSTR-2 and GSTR-3 had been operationalised by the government, and it could have discharged its liability through ITC.
Following this in May 2020, a two-judge bench of the High Court allowed Airtel to seek GST refunds and also directed the government to verify the excess GST claim within two weeks of the order and refund the amount to Bharti Airtel.
