Supreme Court’s GST ruling against Airtel: What it means for India Inc?

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the Delhi High Court order of October last year granting relief to Bharti Airtel by quashing the restriction on rectification of GST returns. It simply disallowed Airtel from seeking Rs 923 crore GST refund. ETCFO discussed the implications of the SC’s ruling for businesses with subject matter experts.

The issue in the first place

In the period from July 2017 to September 2017, Airtel had made errors while filing monthly GST Returns. Any company can discharge their liabilities by paying it from their available Input Tax Credit and pay balance in cash. In the given case as the government systems as well as company systems were not fully functional the telco had not recorded proper Input Tax Credit. Due to it they had filed the returns by paying the liability in cash.