Coming down hard on the indirect tax department the Allahabad High Court said the tax department harassed a taxpayer by cancelling his registration and slapped a fine of Rs 10,000.

The high court also revoked the cancellation of registration of the taxpayer on account of “non filing of Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns for 6 months. The court was hearing a writ petition .

“This case highlights the callous manner in which the assesses has been harassed by the respondents,” the court observed in the case.The indirect tax department had issued show cause notice to the assesses  for not filing GST returns. However, the tax department later accepted that the returns were filed and no dues were pending.“The show cause notice was completely vague and did not even point out as to what ground the reply was proposed to to be sought, the petitioner appeared and apprised that all the returns have already been filed,” the court observed.

The court also asked the tax officer to pay Rs 10,000. In view of the specific findings recorded above to the effect that the petitioner was unnecessarily harassed, the writ petition is allowed with a cost of Rs. 10,000/- to be paid to the petitioner within 30 days by the respondent no. 2 (tax officer) from his own salary,” the high court ruled.