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Rishiraj Singh Rathore vs. Commissioner of CGST, Delhi West Commissionerate & Anr. and connected matters

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:7913-DBDecided 15 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
W.P.(C) 7098/2026, W.P.(C) 7137/2026CNR: DLHC010231162026
Justice Anil Kshetarpal · Justice Shail Jain

Background

Rishiraj Singh Rathore, a director of a mobile-phone trading company, was penalised over Rs. 27 crore under the CGST Act after an investigation found the company had claimed input tax credit based on invoices from non-existent, bogus suppliers. He challenged the penalty order directly in the High Court, arguing that the show-cause notice was never properly served on him personally and that the notices for the personal hearings were confusingly addressed to the company rather than to him as an individual.

Decision Breakdown

The High Court declined to intervene, holding that whether the notices were, in fact, properly served, and whether he was genuinely denied a personal hearing in his individual capacity, were factual questions best examined by the statutory Appellate Authority under Section 107 of the CGST Act, not by the High Court exercising extraordinary writ jurisdiction. The Court also rejected the argument that the Appellate Authority's inability to "remand" a case made the appeal pointless, since it can still decide the case fully on its own merits. The petitioners were directed to pursue their statutory appeal, with liberty to seek exclusion of the time spent in the High Court from the appeal limitation period.

Lesson Learnt

Where a person disputes only whether a tax notice was properly served or a hearing genuinely denied, rather than a fundamental lack of legal authority to act at all, courts will usually send the case to the ordinary statutory appeal process rather than deciding factual service disputes themselves.

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