GST notice uploaded only on portal isn't valid service, high courts rule:
What it means for taxpayers
Jul 27, 2026
Synopsis
High Courts are questioning GST notice validity when only uploaded online. Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled portal uploads are not valid service. Other High Courts also quashed notices due to improper tab placement. Taxpayers must now regularly check the GST portal for any notices. The Supreme Court may soon provide a definitive ruling on this matter.
All over the country, more and more businesses are discovering GST tax demands they insist they never received as the only "service" of the original notice was a silent upload on the common portal, www.gst.gov.in.
The question whether that upload counts as a valid service legally is one where the High Courts are now openly divided, and three rulings delivered in 2026 have brought the debate to a head. To understand why the issue is so delicately poised, it helps to start with what the statute actually says.
What the law actually requires
Section 169 of the CGST Act lists six ways of serving a decision, order or notice namely hand delivery, registered or speed post, e-mail, making it available on the common portal, newspaper publication, and affixation. Any one of them is enough, and Section 169(2) deems a communication served on the date it is made available. On paper, therefore, an upload is enough. The catch lies one step earlier.
Under Section 146 of the CGST Act, the Government must formally notify the common portal for particular purposes. Therefore, everything depends on whether it has ever done so for the service of notices.
Punjab & Haryana High Court: A portal never notified for service
The sharper of the three rulings came from the Punjab and Haryana High Court. On 21 July 2026, a Division Bench of Punjab and Haryana High Court disposed of a batch of 42 writ petitions led by Luxmi Traders v. Union Territory of Chandigarh [CWP No. 27139 of 2025 (O&M)], holding that merely uploading a show-cause notice or an order on the common portal does not amount to valid service on the taxpayer.
The Court found that the Government till date has issued only three notifications under Section 146 in 2017, 2018 and 2019 covering registration, payment of tax, filing of returns, settlement of integrated tax, e-way bills and e-invoicing. None of these notifications prescribes the portal as a medium for service of notices or orders. Applying the well-settled rule that where a statute prescribes a manner of doing a thing, it must be done in that manner alone, the Bench held that uploading is simply not an authorised mode of service.
It also rejected the department's fallback argument of the automated e-mail. That e-mail, the Court noted, only informs the taxpayer that "a notice has been uploaded". It does not attach the notice itself, and so cannot count as service by e-mail either.
The High Court Bench was equally troubled by how hard the portal makes it to find a notice in the first place. Reaching one means clicking through "Services", then "User Services", then "Notices and Orders", and finally a further tab, "View Additional Notices and Orders," an exercise the Court likened to "virtually playing a game of treasure hunt" in which the tabs are not properly marked or labelled. The practical fallout is significant.
Where an order is served only by upload and the taxpayer never replies, the limitation period for filing an appeal does not even begin to run, and the taxpayer can seek restoration of the case and a fresh hearing.
The "wrong tab" problem: Himachal Pradesh and Calcutta High Courts
Weeks earlier, on July 2, 2026, the Himachal Pradesh High Court reached a similar destination by a different road. In Alder Crafts v. State of Himachal Pradesh [(2026) 44 Centax 213 (H.P.)], the notice had been uploaded under the "Additional Notices" tab instead of "Notices and Orders". That misplacement, the Court held, meant there was no proper service at all and it quashed the notice, the ex-parte order and the recovery notice altogether, while leaving the department free to start afresh with a valid notice.
The Calcutta High Court has now added its voice to the same theme. In Raju Ghosh v. State of West Bengal [2026] 188 taxmann.com 729 (Calcutta), decided on July 16, 2026, both the show-cause notice in Form GST DRC-01 and the ex-parte adjudication order under Section 73 had been hosted only under the "Additional Notices and Orders" tab. The taxpayer, unaware of the proceedings, learnt of the demand only after the entire disputed tax had been recovered from his Electronic Credit Ledger.
Rejecting the State's plea that the matter had attained finality because an appeal had already been filed and disposed of, the Court held that hosting the notice and order under that tab deprived the petitioner of knowledge of the proceedings and breached the principles of natural justice. It quashed the adjudication order, the appellate order and the consequential recovery notices, and remitted the matter for a fresh, reasoned order after a personal hearing, while expressly leaving the merits open.
A genuine split - and the Supreme Court waits
These rulings do not have the field to themselves. Several High Courts, led by the Madras High Court in Poomika Infra Developers v. State Tax Officer [(2025) 29 Centax 394 (Mad.)], have held that a portal upload is valid and complete service, and that a registered taxpayer has a continuing duty to check the portal.
The Supreme Court has itself declined to interfere in Mathur Polymers v. Union of India [[2026] 182 taxmann.com 215 (SC)], treating electronic service to the registered address as adequate.
Yet another matter, Bambino Agro Industries Ltd. v. State of Uttar Pradesh [(2026) 44 Centax 63 (S.C.)], is now pending before the Supreme Court on the closely related question of which date counts for limitation. The direction of travel is towards a definitive ruling from the top court. Until it comes, the answer can depend on which State a taxpayer happens to be in.
What this means for businesses
For now, vigilance is the only safe course. Taxpayers should check the portal regularly both the "Notices and Orders" and the "Additional Notices and Orders" tabs. Also, they should keep their registered e-mail and mobile number updated, and preserve screenshots or system records of what appeared, where and when.
For businesses in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, and on the wrong-tab point in Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal, there is a further opening. An ex-parte order served only by upload may now be challenged even after the usual appeal period, on the argument that limitation never started.
A nudge to the administration
The Punjab and Haryana Bench did not stop at striking down the demand before it. It urged the department to rethink how it communicates. Prominent dashboard alerts, mandatory pop-up notifications, OTP-based acknowledgement of important legal communications, automated SMS alerts, and a dedicated section on the taxpayer's dashboard for statutory notices. Haryana has already begun moving in this direction, directing that notices and demand orders be sent by post in addition to being uploaded on the portal.
Conclusion
The message from these judgments is a simple one. A digital compliance platform is meant to make communication easier, not to become a maze in which a taxpayer's statutory rights quietly lapse. Until the government notifies the portal specifically for the service of notices, or the Supreme Court settles the question, "uploaded" cannot safely be treated as "served". Businesses would do well to stay alert and the administration would do better to make its notices impossible to miss.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer (CA Kishore Harjani, Head-GST, Taxmann Research & Development). The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)
[The Economic Times]
