Several petitions were filed by taxpayers who failed to claim transitional credit.

The court has accepted all the petitions.

 Some have documents to support their attempt in filing TRAN-1 Form, few taxpayers did not have any evidence to support their filing of TRAN-1 Form within time while others acknowledge that they committed mistakes while filing the TRAN-1 Form as they were not well-versed with the online system and found it cumbersome and complicated and make a plea that they should be afforded another opportunity to claim their legally vested right.

By virtue of the Finance Act, 2020, an amendment has been introduced in the relevant provisions, with retrospective effect from 1st July, 2017, amending Section 140 of the Act by inserting the words “within such time”. On the strength of this amendment, while dealing with another case relating to filing of TRAN-1 Forms, being SKH Sheet Metal Components v. Union of India, [2020] 117 taxmann.com 94 (Delhi), the Revenue sought to contend that the ratio of the judgment of Brand Equity [2020] 116 taxmann.com 415 (Delhi) ceases to apply.

In this backdrop, the Honorable High Court noted the pending challenge in Brand Equity (supra) before Apex Court, but decided to hear the matter as the facts were different in these petitions. The Court found that some petitioners do not have any document to support their attempt in filing the TRAN-1 Form, but the benefit has been given by this Court to similarly placed taxpayers in other matters despite the absence of any screenshots to support the claim of the Petitioners therein. Therefore, there is no reason why a similar relief should not be granted in the present set of petitions, the court held.

However, in other set of petitions, petitioners have all submitted the TRAN-1 Form within the prescribed time period but their grievance stems from their inability to revise/rectify the TRAN-1 Form filed by them. The Court noted that there is no effective mechanism provided for the revision/rectification of TRAN-1 Form. There is no dispute as to the fact that the Petitioners filed the TRAN-1 Form within the prescribed time, however, they were precluded from claiming their transitional credit on account of inadvertent error on their part due to filling in of wrong details or omissions. Therefore, the court has accepted all the petitions and directed the Revenue to either re-open the online portal so as to enable the Petitioners to file TRAN-1 Form electronically, or to accept the same manually on or before 30th June, 2021.