Brief Facts

1. M/s Jabsons Foods Private Limited, hereinafter referred to as M/s Jabsons for the sake of brevity, supplies, inter alia, different kinds of Roasted Chana classifying the said products at HSN Code 21069099 which attracts [email protected]%.

2. M/s Jabsons is before us, seeking a Ruling on GST rate on cited Roasted Chana products.

Revenue’s Submission:

3. CGST Vadodara-II Commissionerate submitted as follows:

i. An investigation on this issue (issue raised by M/s Jabson before Advance Ruling Authority) has already been initiated by the officers of Preventive Section, CGST & Central Excise, Vadodara –II Commissionerate.

ii. A search was conducted at the premises of the taxpayer on 8-7-21 under Section 67(2) of the CGST Act, 2017.

iii. Summons dated 9-7-21 bearing DIN 20210765VB000000C72 (under Section 70 of the CGST Act, 2017) was issued to the applicant.

iv. Further, the detailed investigation in the matter is under progress.

Personal Hearing:

4. Shri Rahul Agarwal, Director and Shri Vinay Kansara, Advocate appeared for hearing (online hearing) on 21-10-21 and re-iterated the submissions made in the application.

4.1 On specific enquiry whether any enquiry/ proceeding has been initiated in relation to the question raised in the subject application, Shri Rahul Agarwal stated that Revenue Officers visited factory premises on 8-7-21; drew Panchnama dated 8-7-21 and recorded the statement on 8-7-21. Further, submitted that Summons dated 9-7-21 was issued.

Findings

5. We have carefully considered all the submissions made by the M/s Jabsons and the Revenue.

6. We refer to Sr. No 17 of subject Application Form GST ARA-01 dated 28-9-21 filed by M/s Jabson, reproduced as follows:

“I hereby declare that the question raised in the application is not (tick)”

1. Already pending in any proceedings in applicant case under any of the provision of the Act-The preventing officer visited the factory in the month of July 2021 and took objection about the rate of GST of Roasted Chana/ Gram

6.1 On perusal of said declaration in subject Application and the submissions before us, We find that proceedings have already been initiated by Revenue in July 2021 against M/s Jabsons with respect to subject questions raised in the application filed in September 2021.

7. The fact on record is that Revenue initiated the Summons proceedings vide section 70(1) CGST Act in July 2021. We note that as per Section 70(2) of CGST Act, every such inquiry referred to in sub-section (1) shall be deemed to be a judicial proceeding within the meaning of section 193 and section 228 of the Indian Penal Code. Thereby we hold that subject inquiry initiated vide Section 70(1) of the CGST Act by the Revenue is a judicial proceeding. We hold that said investigation initiated by Revenue is a ‘proceeding’ within the ambit of Section 98 (2) of CGST Act. We hold that the Advance Ruling cannot be used as a mechanism to nullify the inquiry proceedings already initiated by the Revenue vide section 70(1) of CGST Act.

8. The subject application is hereby rejected as non-maintainable and inadmissible.