Supreme Court – Daily Orders
M/S. A.S. Met Corp. Private Limited vs The Deputy Commissioner (St) (Fac) on 12 March, 2026
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ITEM NO.13 COURT NO.7 SECTION XII-A
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s).35306/2025
[Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 06-10-2025
in WP No. 29376/2025 passed by the High Court for The State of
Telangana at Hyderabad]
M/S. A.S. MET CORP. PRIVATE LIMITED Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
THE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER (ST) (FAC) & ORS. Respondent(s)
FOR ADMISSION
IA No. 10654/2026 - INTERVENTION APPLICATION
IA No. 318456/2025 - PERMISSION TO FILE ADDITIONAL
DOCUMENTS/FACTS/ANNEXURES
IA No. 314495/2025 - PERMISSION TO FILE LENGTHY LIST OF DATES
Date : 12-03-2026 This matter was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE J.B. PARDIWALA
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.V. VISWANATHAN
For Petitioner(s) :Mr. Prashant Bhushan, Adv.
Mr. Rahul Gupta, Adv.
Mr. K. Shankar, Adv.
Mr. Devi Venkata Srikar Pagadala, AOR
Mr. Luma Kanta Bhandari, Adv.
For Respondent(s) :Mr. N Venkatraman, A.S.G.
Mr. T. Rajnikanth Reddy, A.A.G.
Ms. Devina Sehgal, AOR
Mr. Srikanth Varma Mudunuru, Adv.
Mr. S Niranjan Reddy, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Krishna Dev Jagarlamudi, AOR
Mr. S Sahil Reddy, Adv.
Signature Not Verified
Mr. Vishnu Kanth Mundada, Adv.
Digitally signed by
MOHD IBRAHIM
Date: 2026.03.14
Mr. Arpit Kumar Mishra, Adv.
Mr. Shadab Azhar, Adv.
14:21:07 IST
Reason:
Mr. Sanjoy Ghose, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Mohit Garg, Adv.
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Mr. Siddharth Mishra, Adv.
Mr. K Shankar, Adv.
Mr. Rahul Gupta, AOR
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
1. This petition arises from the judgment and order passed by a
Division Bench of the High Court for the State of Telangana dated
06.10.2025 in Writ Petition No.29376/2025 by which the Writ
Petition preferred by the petitioner herein seeking to challenge
the order-in-original of assessment dated 02.07.2025 passed under
Section 74 of the Telangana Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017 (for
short, “the TGST Act”) came to be rejected.
2. We heard Mr. Prashant Bhushan, the learned senior counsel
appearing for the petitioner, Mr. N Venkatraman, the learned A.S.G.
appearing for the State of Telangana and Mr. Krishna Dev
Jagarlamudi, the learned counsel appearing for M/s. KLSR Infratech
Limited (not a party before us).
3. It appears that the principle argument that was canvassed
before the High Court by the petitioner before us was with respect
to not providing all relevant documents seized during the
inspection.
4. To put it in other words, the petitioner redressed a serious
grievance before the High Court that the order-in-original came to
be passed in violation of the principles of natural justice.
5. The High Court while rejecting the Writ Petition observed in
paras 15 and 16, respectively. The two paras read thus:-
“15. The petitioner is at liberty to approach the
appellate authority with statutory pre-deposit as per
the provisions of Section 107(1) read with sub-section
3(4) of the TGST Act.
16. Let it be made clear that the observations made
herein above are limited to examine whether the
petitioner has been denied principles of natural justice
or the adjudicating officer has failed to follow the
procedure prescribed under the Act while passing the
impugned order-in-original. We have not entered into the
merits of the case of the parties. The appellate
authority would be free to consider the grounds raised
in appeal in accordance with law.”
6. Mr. Bhushan, the learned senior counsel appearing for the
petitioner brought to our notice that an offshoot of this
litigation is in the form of a Writ Petition preferred in this
Court being Writ Petition (Crl.) No.19/2026 titled “Saurabh Agarwal
vs. Union of India and Ors.”. It was also brought to our notice
that this Writ Petition is being heard by the Court of Hon’ble the
Chief Justice of India.
7. The learned counsel also placed before us the memorandum of
the Writ Petition referred to above and invited our attention to
the averments made in paras 101 to 103, respectively. The three
paragraphs read thus:-
“101.It is humbly submitted that, the STATE TAX
Authorities had initiated malicious proceedings against
both the A S METCORP PVT LTD and the Petitioner, on the
same date and time simultaneously on 24.12.2023, by way
of unlawful search and inspection proceedings. Moreover,
the STATE TAX AUTHORITIES had maliciously manufactured a
Letter dated 07.08.2023 purportedly addressed to ACP
(EOW), alleging violation of provisions of GST Act 2017,
by both the A S METCORP PVT LTD and the PETITIONER
herein, besides one more entity VVR Industries, without
having provided any opportunity to be heard and defend.
Further a copy of, the said letter dated 07.08.2023, was
unlawfully shared with the Suspended Director of M/s
KLSR Infratech Limited, in blatant violation of the
provisions under Section 158 of TSGST/CGST/IGST Act
2017, which was in turn introduced before the Hon’ble
NCLAT Chennai bench by way of Interlocutory Application,
in the matter of Company Appeal No.
CA(AT)(INS)(CHE)/210/2023, filed by the Suspended
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Director of KLSR Infratech Limited against the above
referred order of the Hon’ble NCLT Hyderabad dated
14.07.2023, and a copy was served to A S METCORP PVT
LTD, being the Respondent in the said appeal.
102. It is humbly submitted that, the Suspended
management of M/s KLSR Infratech Limited is apparently
very close to the present dispensation governing the
State of Telangana. Using the proximity to power, the
suspended management of KLSR Infratech Limited, had
influenced the STATE TAX AUTHORITIES to abuse their
powers, to support the cause of the Suspended Director
of M/s KLSR Infratech Limited in the matter of APPEAL
against the Order of Hon’ble NCLT Hyderabad, and thus
the malicious Proceedings by the STATE TAX OFFICIALS
from GST Department of the State of Telangana were
initiated, only and only to arm twist the A S METCORP
PVT LTD and the Petitioner to succumb and forego their
Legally Tenable Receivables from the Corporate Debtor,
now under CIRP M/s KLSR Infratech Limited.
103. It is humbly submitted that, a systematic and
identical pattern is apparent from the manner in which
the malicious Proceedings have been unleashed against
both the A S METCORP PVT LTD and the Petitioner. The
State tax authorities have deliberately and unlawfully
been issuing Show cause Notices and Assessment Orders
with unsubstantiated, egregious and abnormally high
values of TAX DEMANDS, without providing the Documents
relied upon, nor providing a fair and equitable
opportunity to the A S METCORP PVT LTD and Petitioner to
raise the Objections and effective Defence.”
8. On the other hand, Mr. Venkatraman, while vehemently opposing
this petition submitted that the High Court has, after due
consideration of all the relevant aspects of the matter rightly
declined to entertain the Writ Petition seeking to challenge the
legality and validity of the order-in-original of assessment passed
by the authority concerned.
9. The learned A.S.G. invited our attention to the observations
made by the High Court as contained in para 7 of the impugned
judgment of the High Court. Para 7 reads thus:-
“7. Our attention has been drawn to the findings
recorded by the adjudicating officer at page Nos. 120 to
125 of the material papers annexed to the writ petition.
According to the learned Special Government Pleader for
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State Tax, they demonstrate that the petitioner in the
first round of litigation approached this Court on the
plea that the orders and show cause notices were
unsigned. The matter was remitted to the adjudicating
officer. Thereafter, the petitioner once again laid
challenge to the impugned proceedings on the ground that
the relied upon documents were not supplied. It is
submitted that after the order dated 05.03.2025 passed
in W.P.Nos.17938, 17941 & 18148 of 2024 and 1005 & 1130
of 2025, the adjudicating officer has supplied the
scanned copies of several such documents for the
financial year 2020-2021 i.e., 1810 scanned copies
through e-mail dated 15.04.2025 at the time of issuance
of DRC-01A dated 11.04.2025 and also made attempts to
provide the hard copies, which were denied. The scanned
copies were again sent through e-mail while DRC-01 was
issued on 29.04.2025. The assessee was asked to depute a
person to collect the supporting material and also get
soft copies of the scanned documents. The taxpayer,
however, did not file any submissions in Part-B of the
DRC-01A. A revised show cause notice was thereafter
issued under Section 74 of the TGST Act/Central Goods
and Services Tax Act, 2017 read with Section 20 of the
Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, in Form
DRC-01 on 29.04.2025 without prejudice to any other
action that may be initiated under the TGST Act. It is
submitted that the petitioner through its Advocate
attended personal hearing before the adjudicating
officer on 26.05.2025 and requested to provide the
certified copies with serial numbers. Hence, 2434
photocopies of seized documents and 363 Radio- Frequency
Identification (RFID) data tracking were provided by the
department along with the soft copy in a pen drive and
covering letter handed over on 29.05.2025 duly
acknowledged by the petitioner’s representative. Even
then, the petitioner kept on persisting that the
documents were not clear or legible. The assessee,
however, neither clearly specified the documents which
were missing nor specified the documents which were
illegible. The petitioner was granted multiple
opportunities to visit the office on scheduled dates
i.e., 12.06.2025, 16.06.2025, 18.06.2025 and 20.06.2025
at 11.30 am to collect the required documents, but it
failed to visit. The adjudicating officer issued three
reminders on 02.06.2025, 21.06.2025 and 25.06.2025 to
avail the personal hearing and to file reply. Even after
receipt of 2434 documents along with DRC-01A and the
revised show cause notice in addition to providing the
photocopies of all the documents on 29.05.2025, the
petitioner did not file any reply to the revised show
cause notice and did not respond till date. Then on
02.07.2025, the date of personal hearing, it made a
request at 1.12 pm to consider the adjournment of 15
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days for the scheduled personal hearing and also for
submission of the objections to the revised show cause
notice. The assessee also claimed that 60 days time has
to be granted from the date of supply of all the
documents relied upon to furnish reply to the show cause
notice. However, the adjudicating officer was of the
opinion that sufficient time and opportunities have been
provided to the taxpayer who has failed to submit its
reply. Therefore, after examining the correspondence and
the period already consumed, the adjudicating officer
came to the conclusion that the assessee is not
interested in submitting the reply, despite huge number
opportunities. It is submitted that the assessee has
claimed Input Tax Credit (ITC) without physical inward
supply tax invoices, registers, using of irrelevant
vehicles as per e-way bills, non-submission of
information/ documents in spite of multiple notices.
Therefore, the ITC was proposed to be disallowed to a
tune of Rs.50,69,735/- of CGST, a similar amount of TGST
and IGST of Rs. 1,40,31,290/-.”
10. Mr. Venkatraman has many other contentions to canvass to
highlight the bona-fides of the present petitioner.
11. We are of the view that let this petition before us be heard
along with Writ Petition (Crl.) No.19/2026.
12. Registry shall place this order before Hon’ble the Chief
Justice of India.
(HARPREET KAUR) (POOJA SHARMA) COURT MASTER (SH) COURT MASTER (NSH)
(Copy of memorandum of writ petition as mentioned in para 7 given by the learned
counsel in Court is annexed with RoP)
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