A Game of Treasure Hunt: Service of GST Notices and Orders under S. 169 of the CGST Act and the Emerging Split Among High Courts

A Game of Treasure Hunt: Service of GST Notices and Orders under S. 169 of the CGST Act and the Emerging Split Among High Courts 

Introduction 

The Punjab and Haryana High Court's ruling in Luxmi Traders v. Union Territory of Chandigarhi is not merely another decision on the mechanics of electronic service under the GST regime. At its core, the judgment examines three interconnected questions, while the subsequent judicial developments add a further dimension concerning the extent to which the Luxmi Traders approach has been recognised by other High Courts. First, whether uploading a show cause notice or an order-in-original on the GST common portal, without more, satisfies the modes of service prescribed under s. 169 read with s. 146ii of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (‘CGST Act’). Second, whether the ‘Common Portal’ referred to in s. 169(1)(d) can be treated as validly constituted for that purpose in the absence of a specific notification; third, and more broadly, what becomes of a taxpayer’s statutory right of appeal where the only method of service employed leaves the very discovery of an adjudication to chance. 

While the immediate issue before the Court arose from a batch of 42 connected writ petitions concerning the Union Territory of Chandigarh and the States of Punjab and Haryana, the reasoning has implications extending considerably beyond those cases. The judgment was rendered against the backdrop of at least three other High Courts grappling with the identical statutory question over roughly sixteen months. One treated portal upload under s. 169(1)(d) as sufficient service, subject to a separate enquiry into its effectiveness; the other treated the validity of service as analytically distinct from the higher threshold of ‘communication’ required to trigger the limitation period for an appeal. The decision, therefore, sits at the intersection of statutory notification practice, the design of digital administrative processes, and a taxpayer's right to a meaningful opportunity of being heard. 

Brief Facts 

• The petitioner in the lead case, a proprietorship firm registered under the CGST Act and carrying on business in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, was subjected to scrutiny under s. 61 of the CGST Act. An intimation in Form ASMT-10 was issued on 29.08.2023, followed by a show cause notice in Form DRC-01 dated 27.09.2023 under s. 73. 

  
  

• According to the petitioner, no communication or notice of personal hearing was actually received, and the date, time or venue of hearing was not specified in the SCN. The authorities nonetheless proceeded ex parte and passed an order-in-original dated 28.12.2023, which was uploaded only under the ‘View Additional Notices and Orders’ tab of the common portal (www.gst.gov.in), with no other mode of service having been attempted. 

  
  

• By the time the petitioner discovered the order, the period for filing an appeal under s. 107, including the further period that could be condoned by the Appellate Authority, had already expired. The Revenue contended that uploading on the common portal was a permissible mode of service under s. 169(1)(d), further supported by an intimation email under s. 169(1)(c), and that no separate notification under s. 146 was required since the portal's notified purposes extended to ‘such other functions ... as may be prescribed’. 

  
  

• Identical fact patterns recurred across the 41 connected petitions, several of which involved appeals already dismissed on the ground of limitation by the Appellate Authority. 

Held 

• The Court held that none of the three notifications issued under s. 146 (dated 19.06.2017, 23.01.2018 and 13.12.2019) notify the common portal for service of notices or orders; each is confined to registration/returns, e-way bills, or e-invoicing respectively. In the absence of such a notification, and in the absence of any CGST Rule prescribing portal upload as a mode of service, uploading under s. 169(1)(d) was held not to constitute an authorised mode of service. 

  
  

• The intimation e-mail was held insufficient to satisfy s. 169(1)(c), since it merely informed the taxpayer that a document had been uploaded, without attaching the SCN or order itself. The Court further noted that the deeming fiction under s. 169(2) applies to service under clauses (a), (b), (e) and (f) of s. 169(1), but not to clauses (c) (e-mail) or (d) (Common Portal), unlike the fictions applicable to service by post, newspaper publication, or affixation, and invoked the principle that where a statute prescribes a particular manner of service, it must be followed in that manner alone. 

  
  

• At the same time, the Court accepted the Revenue's submission founded on s. 160(2) of the CGST Act that service cannot be questioned where the SCN/order has already been acted upon by the noticee; where an SCN was in fact contested on merits, the resultant order could not be reopened merely on the ground of defective service. 

  
  

• Balancing these considerations, the Court held:  
  
  

  1. service of an SCN cannot be deemed sufficient merely because it was uploaded on the common portal, unless its receipt is acknowledged or a reply is filed;

  2. where an SCN uploaded only on the portal went unanswered and resulted in an ex parte order, proceedings stand restored to the SCN stage with liberty to file a reply within four weeks;

  3. where an order-in-original was passed after contest but served only through the portal, the limitation period for an appeal under s. 107 is not triggered, and the assessee may appeal within four weeks;

  4. appeals already dismissed on limitation in such cases stand restored to be decided on merits; and

  5. where both the SCN and the consequent order were founded on portal-only service, both stand set aside, with the matter restored to the SCN stage.

     
     

• The Court additionally directed the Department, in addition to notifying the Common Portal for effecting service of SCN/orders, to introduce prominent dashboard alerts, mandatory pop-up notifications, OTP-based acknowledgement, automated SMS alerts, and a separate s. on the taxpayer’s dashboard for service of statutory notices/orders, so that the Common Portal functions as an effective instrument of communication. 

  
  

• In three subsequent orders, Gugal Electrical and Engg. Worksiii, United Chem Indiaiv, and Shanaya Enterprisesv, the same Bench, aided by its clarificatory order in Amar Cooperative LC Society Ltd.vi, rejected the Revenue's argument that the retrospective amendment introduced by s. 115 of the Finance Act, 2022vii (widening Notification G.S.R. 58(E) to cover ‘all functions provided under the CGST Rules, 2017’) validated portal-only service. The Court held that even after the retrospective widening of the notification, the CGST Rules, 2017 themselves nowhere prescribe the common portal as a mode for service of an SCN or order. R. 142 only requires electronic communication of a summary, not the underlying document. Thus, the amendment left the Luxmi Traders position undisturbed. 

Our Analysis 

The doctrinal significance of Luxmi Traders (supra) lies in its place within a rapidly developing body of High Court authority on portal-based service under s. 169, with significant developments across four High Courts over roughly sixteen months. The Madras High Court, in Axiom Gen Nxt India (P.) Ltd.viii, accepted portal upload as valid service but required further service where portal reminders proved ineffective. The Allahabad High Court, in Bambino Agro Industries Ltd.ix, similarly accepted portal service but distinguished between receipt and communication for triggering limitation under s. 107; however, the Supreme Court, on 29.05.2026, issued notice in the Revenue’s SLP and stayed the operation of the judgment, without deciding the issue on merits. The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in Luxmi Traders (supra) and the subsequent decisions, rejected portal-only service absent a specific statutory or notified basis and declined retrospective validation of such service. The Delhi High Court, in Gorki Contractors and Engineers v. Union of India & Ors.x, subsequently recognised the Luxmi Traders (supra) approach and permitted the petitioners to avail its remedies, without independently deciding the validity of portal-only service. Thus, three substantive approaches have emerged, with the Delhi decision providing further judicial recognition to the assessee's protective position adopted in Luxmi Traders (supra). 

What distinguishes Luxmi Traders (supra) from the Madras and Allahabad approaches is that the Bench did not stop at asking whether the assessee could technically locate the notice on the portal; it first asked whether the statute itself authorised portal upload as a mode of service. On a plain reading of s. 146, the ‘Common Portal’ is not self-defining but becomes available for a particular purpose only when notified by the Government. Since none of the notifications issued under s. 146 notified www.gst.gov.in for service of SCNs or orders, the Bench found no statutory basis for treating portal upload as service under s. 169(1)(d). This is stricter than the Madras and Allahabad approaches, which accepted portal upload as valid service but examined its effectiveness or communication. The Delhi High Court’s subsequent decision in Gorki Contractors (supra), while not independently deciding the validity of portal-only service, recognized the Luxmi Traders (supra) approach and permitted the petitioners to avail the remedies formulated therein. The Punjab and Haryana Bench therefore addressed the threshold question of whether service had occurred at all and answered it against the Revenue. 

In the author’s view, this represents the more defensible and practically realistic reading of the statute. The Bench’s finding that locating an order requires navigating from ‘Services’ to ‘User Services’ to ‘Notices and Orders’ and then to the ‘View Additional Notices and Orders’ sub-tab is not a minor procedural objection; it goes to the heart of what ‘service’ is intended to achieve. A digital platform through which statutory rights are to be recognized cannot be designed in a manner that renders the existence of an SCN or an order-in-original on a taxpayer dependent on his ability to navigate an obscure or unintuitive interfacexi. It is worth recalling here the principle invoked by the Bench from Taylor v. Taylorxii, that where a statute prescribes a thing to be done in a particular manner, it must be done in that manner and no other. The corollary is that a mode of ‘service’ not prescribed by statute cannot be treated as valid merely because it is technologically convenient for the Department. Service is therefore not a mere procedural formality; it must fulfil the substantive purpose of bringing the proceedings to the taxpayer’s notice. This concern also finds expression, though through different legal routes, in the Madras High Court’s distinction between ‘sufficient’ and ‘effective’ service in Axiom Gen Nxt (supra) and the Allahabad High Court’s distinction between ‘receipt’ and ‘communication’ in Bambino Agro (supra). The approaches are not identical, but each recognises that the mere existence of a document on a digital platform does not necessarily establish that the taxpayer has been meaningfully apprised of the proceedings. As the Bench put it, a “digital platform through which statutory rights are to be recognised cannot be designed in a manner such that it renders the existence of an SCN or order-in-original on a taxpayer dependent upon his ability to navigate an obscure or unintuitive interface.” 

There is also a practical dimension to the Punjab and Haryana Bench’s approach that deserves emphasis, and which the judgment itself does not dwell on at length, but which follows naturally from its reasoning. The common portal, as designed, presupposes a level of familiarity with GST compliance architecture that ordinary small or medium taxpayers, including sole proprietors, small traders, and family-run partnerships, often lack. In practice, this class of assessee often outsources portal compliance to a GST practitioner, chartered accountant, or tax consultant, who may log into the portal periodically to file returns but may not be specifically retained or instructed to monitor adjudicatory notices and orders. Where such a professional changes, becomes unavailable, or fails to monitor the relevant tab, which is separate from the routine return-filing process, the assessee is left with no independent means of knowing that proceedings are pending against it. The Allahabad High Court also recorded this concern at length in Bambino Agro (supra), whose operation has subsequently been stayed by the Supreme Court. The Madras High Court acknowledged it as a recurring, genuine grievance in Axiom Gen Nxt (supra), even while ultimately declining to treat it as fatal to the validity of service itself. petitioner highlighted that ‘the process itself being cumbersome, it becomes extremely challenging even for an honest taxpayer to know about the issuance of SCN or the order by its mere uploading on the GST portal.’xiii The Bench’s subsequent observations regarding the complex process of locating notices and orders on the portal reinforce this practical concern. This practical difficulty supports the Punjab and Haryana Bench’s refusal to treat portal upload as service in the absence of a specific notification. This practical difficulty supports the Punjab and Haryana Bench’s refusal to treat portal upload as service in the absence of a specific notification. An unconditional restoration to the SCN stage, without a pre-deposit condition, is consistent with treating the underlying service as legally non-existent rather than merely irregular, which is the more coherent remedy once the Bench has already concluded, as a matter of statutory interpretation, that s. 169(1)(d) was never actually triggered on these facts. 

The retrospective amendment challenge mounted by the Revenue in Gugal Electrical (supra), United Chem India (supra) and Shanaya Enterprises (supra) is, in this light, a natural and predictable second line of argument, and the Bench’s rejection of it is equally consistent with the same underlying logic. Widening a notification issued under s. 146 to cover ‘all functions provided under the CGST Rules, 2017’ does nothing to help the Revenue unless the Rules themselves actually provide for service of an SCN or order through the common portal and, as the Bench correctly noted, r. 142 stops at requiring electronic communication of a summary of the demand, not the underlying notice or order. A retrospective amendment to the scope of a notification cannot, by itself, create a Rule that does not otherwise exist. Thus, the Bench rightly held that expanding the notification cannot validate portal-only service where the Rules do not provide for it. This prevents the Revenue from retrospectively validating past portal-only proceedings. 

i Luxmi Traders v. Union Territory of Chandigarh, [2026] 188 taxmann.com 812 (Punjab & Haryana)
ii Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, s. 169 read with s. 146.
iii Gugal Electrical and Engg. Works v. State of Punjab, [2026] 189 taxmann.com 55 (Punjab & Haryana)
iv United Chem India v. Excise and Taxation Officer, [2026] 189 taxmann.com 45 (Punjab & Haryana)
v Shanaya Enterprises v. State of Punjab, [2026] 188 taxmann.com 1057 (Punjab & Haryana)
vi Amar Cooperative LC Society Ltd. v. State of Haryana, [2026] 188 taxmann.com 1051 (Punjab & Haryana)
vii Finance Act, 2022, s. 115 and the Fifth Schedule thereto, amending Notification No. G.S.R. 58(E), dated 23.01.2018, issued under s. 146 of the CGST Act, 2017.
viii Axiom Gen Nxt India (P.) Ltd. v. Commercial State Tax Officer, [2025] 173 taxmann.com 846 (Madras)
ix Bambino Agro Industries Ltd. v. State of Uttar Pradesh, [2025] 181 taxmann.com 888 (Allahabad)
x W.P.(C) 4118/2026 Delhi High Court
xi See para 51 of endnote 1
xii Taylor v. Taylor, (1875) 1 Ch. D 426.
xiii See para 34 of endnote 1