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RPP Infra Projects Ltd, Karnataka vs. Union of India & Ors. and connected matters

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:7859-DBDecided 16 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
W.P.(C) 10852/2025, W.P.(C) 10853/2025, W.P.(C) 10861/2025CNR: DLHC010491052025
Justice Anil Kshetarpal · Justice Shail Jain

Background

RPP Infra Projects Ltd. holds separate GST registrations in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. A Delhi-based tax investigation accused it of claiming Input Tax Credit based on invoices from a subcontractor, Univista, which the department alleged was part of a chain of fake billing traced back to non-existent suppliers. A single adjudication order confirmed separate tax demands, interest, and penalties against each of the company's three state registrations. The company (and two connected sister-registration petitions) challenged this order directly in the High Court instead of filing a departmental appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Court found that although the company's written reply was accidentally left out of the final order, the order still showed the reasoning for rejecting the ITC claim, and a personal hearing had genuinely taken place, so this was not a fatal procedural defect. It rejected the argument that Delhi-based officers had no power over Karnataka-registered businesses, holding that intelligence-based GST investigations can validly cross state lines and that the specific Delhi office was correctly assigned under the "highest demand" rule since a related notice against a Delhi-based supplier carried the largest amount. The Court also declined to decide, at the writ stage, whether a circular excluding tax recovery for certain fake-invoice situations applied, leaving that and all other merits questions to the statutory appellate authority. The petitions were dismissed with liberty to file a statutory appeal, and interim protection from coercive recovery was extended for four weeks to allow that appeal to be filed.

Lesson Learnt

A business with GST registrations in multiple states can still be investigated and have its case centrally adjudicated in Delhi if that is where intelligence officers traced the fraud, and small procedural slips (like a reply not being copied into the final order) will not by themselves invalidate the process if a fair hearing was actually given.

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