No Statutory Mechanism To Revise GST Return For ITC: HP High Court Allows Manual Filing Of Monthly Return

In the absence of any statutory mechanism under the GST law to revise or correct GSTR-3B, the monthly GST return used to declare tax liability and claim Input Tax Credit, a taxpayer cannot be left without a remedy for a bona fide mistake, the Himachal Pradesh High Court has held.

A division bench of Justices Vivek Singh Thakur and Romesh Verma allowed a registered taxpayer to file the GSTR-3B return manually for the quarter ending March 2021 so that its unclaimed Input Tax Credit (ITC) could be examined.

The court clarified that allowing a manual filing of the return would not automatically cancel or affect the tax demand already confirmed, which would continue to stand unless modified by a competent authority.

In the case at hand, the taxpayer (petitioner) failed to claim Input Tax Credit (ITC) in the GSTR-3B return for the quarter ending March 2021 due to an inadvertent error during the F.Y. 2020-2021. 

The said error came to the notice of the accountant of the taxpayer in the year 2022 at the time of filing the annual return GSTR-9, and the return was duly filed with the correction of the error.

The discrepancy continued in the department's records, and therefore, a show-cause notice was issued to the taxpayer. Thereafter, the demand was confirmed through an order.

As the CGST Act (Central Goods and Services Tax Act) does not provide any mechanism for manual filing or revision of GSTR-3B to claim additional ITC, the taxpayer filed a petition before the Himachal Pradesh High Court seeking a direction to permit manual filing of GSTR-3B.

The department argued that the taxpayer came to know about the mistake in 2022 itself but did not take action to rectify the mistake, and therefore, he cannot claim ITC.

The taxpayer agreed with the department that the mistake was noticed in the year 2022. The taxpayer further clarified that, but for filing the annual return GSTR-9 with rectification of the mistake, he was under the impression that the mistake committed in claiming Input Tax Credit would be rectified everywhere in the relevant record and would be taken care of accordingly by the concerned authority.

The bench, after hearing both sides, accepted the taxpayer's contentions that allowing manual filing of the return would not automatically cancel or affect the tax demand already raised in the order. 

The High Court, after noting that the demand would continue unless changed by a competent authority, allowed the taxpayer to file the manual return.

In view of the above, the bench directed the department to allow the taxpayer to file a manual return. 

Case Title: Shivam Electric Corporation v. Union of India 

Citation: 2026 LLBiz HC (HP) 5

Case Number: 8053 of 2025

Counsel for Petitioner: Advocates Joy Kumar and Ajmer Singh 

Counsel for Respondent: Advocates Virbahadur Verma and Mukul Sharma, for respondent No. 1 and Vijay K. Arora, Senior Advocate with Aastha Kohli and Hitansh Raj, for respondents No. 2 & 4.