Bharti Airtel gets GST relief of Rs 923 crore

Bharti Airtel can claim Rs 923 crore as a refund by rectifying its goods and services tax returns, the Delhi High Court has said.

Authorities claimed Bharti Airtel had underreported input tax credit from July to September 2017.

The court also asked revenue authorities to verify the rectified GSTR-3B form and process the refund, if any, within two weeks, Financial Express reported.

Bharti Airtel said it had paid excess tax of Rs 923 crore on inputs based on estimates since the GSTR-2A form was not operational during the error period.

A division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Sanjeev Narula permitted the telecom player to revise the input tax credit for the three months mentioned.

“We do not find any cogent reasoning behind the logic for restricting rectification only in the period in which the error is noticed and corrected, and not in the period to which it relates,” the bench said.

“Indisputably, if the statutorily prescribed returns, GSTR-2 and GSTR-3 had been operationalised by the government, the petitioner (Bharti) would have known the correct the Input Tax Credit (ITC) amount available to it in the relevant period, and could have discharged its liability through ITC,” it said.

―Money Control