The Supreme Court has upheld the view that the omission of Rule 96(10) of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Rules, 2017 would be applicable to every pending proceeding as on the date of its omission. The Apex Court clarified that the omission would inure to the benefit of the assessee in the pending proceedings, wherein there was a claim of refund of integrated tax paid on goods and services exported out of India.

The Apex Court was considering a batch of petitions filed by the Union of India and the Department against the impugned judgment having held that the omission of Rule 96(10) of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Rules, 2017 would be applicable to every pending proceeding as on the date of its omission.

The Division Bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran held, “We may also observe that even going by the recommendations extracted hereinabove, sub-rule (10) of Rule 96 was omitted because it was ‘leading to unnecessary complications without any intended benefit being served’ (sic). As fairly submitted by the learned ASG the legislature has not brought in any saving clause or a sunset clause, when sub-rule (10) of Rule 96 was omitted. The recommendation that the omission should be prospective is also advisory in nature and does not bind the rule making authority.”

Advocate Abhishek A Rastogi represented the Appellant while Senior Advocate Jay Savla represented the Respondent.

Issue

The issue before the Bench was whether sub-rule (10) of Rule 96, as omitted by Notification No.20/2024 with effect from October 8, 2024, would inure to the benefit of the assessee in the pending proceedings, wherein there was a claim of refund of integrated tax paid on goods and services exported out of India.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that the sub-rule having been omitted, the applicability of refund under Rule 96 was without the rigour of the person claiming such refund having received supplies after availing benefits available by virtue of the notifications specified in clause (a) or the benefits available under the notifications specified under clause (b).

The Bench referred to the judgment in Kolhapur Canesugar Works Ltd v. Union of India (2001), wherein it has been observed that if on omission of a rule, there was a provision for continuance of the proceedings already initiated or if by incorporation of a provision in the statute there was a legal device adopted, creating a fiction by virtue of which proceedings under the omitted rule could be continued; only then proceedings initiated under the omitted rule could be continue.

The Bench was of the view that the intention to omit the rule without any saving clause was to bring to an end the unnecessary complications once and for all, and the intention could not be to keep alive the unnecessary complications insofar as the pending proceedings are concerned.

It was brought to the Court’s notice that there were many proceedings pending before the various High Courts and conflicting decisions had also been passed. The Bench thus ordered, “The Registry of the High Courts will ensure that the cases relating to the subject issue of omission of Rule 96(10) would be placed before the Courts having roster, after taking appropriate orders from the Hon’ble Chief Justice of the respective High Courts, expeditiously to bring quietus in the subject litigation.”

Finding no reason to interfere with the well-reasoned judgment of the High Court, the Bench dismissed the appeal.

Cause Title: M/s Goodluck India Limited v. Union of India (Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 821)

Appearance

Appellant: Advocates Abhishek A Rastogi, Purnendu Bajpai, Meenal Songire, AOR Shubham Singh, AOR Gurmeet Singh Makker

Respondent: Senior Advocates Jay Savla, Prakash Shah, Advocates Yashovardhan Singh, Adithya Nair, V Lakshmikumaran, Ananya Gupta, AOR Charanya Lakshmikumaran, Advocates L Badri Narayanan, Nitum Jain, Neha Choudhary, Swastik Mishra, Medha Sinha, Sahil Parghi, Prithwiraj Choudhuri, Kausarjahan Sayed, AOR Sujoy Chatterjee, M/S Mps Legal, Advocates Mihir Mehta, Jas Sanghavi, Mohit Raval

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Justice JB PardiwalaJustice K. Vinod Chandran

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.