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GST - Full Bench Order - Validity of show cause notices and orders without visible digital signature - Electronic authentication through common portal - Notices and orders under Sections 73 and 74 of the CGST Act, 2017 and their summaries in Forms DRC-01, DRC-01A and DRC-07 were made available on the common portal without any visible physical or digital signature - The petitioners contended that they were unsigned documents, a nullity, relying on Rule 26(3) and on the mandatory use of "shall" in Rule 142 and the Forms - Whether such notices and orders are unsigned documents within the meaning of the GST Acts read with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and are a nullity in law - HELD - Forms are subservient to the Rules and legislation and cannot supplant them, so the requirement of inscription of signature in the prescribed Forms cannot override the Rules under which they are prescribed. Rule 26(3), which falls under the Chapter on Registration, does not extend to Chapter XVIII, where the rule making authority has consciously provided for different modes of authentication under different Chapters - Notices and orders under Chapter XVIII are electronically authenticated through the common portal, where the officer is onboarded by means of a digital signature certificate protected by a PIN known only to the holder, registered against his identity, and the system generates a hash value through asymmetric cryptography, which satisfies Sections 3, 3A and 5 of the Information Technology Act and the Second Schedule, with legal recognition under Section 5. The common portal is a secure system accessible only to the proper officer and the registered taxpayer, so verification of the digital signature at the recipient end is not required - A presumption of regularity attaches to the electronic record and electronic signature under the evidence law, which the petitioners failed to rebut, and the absence of a visible digital signature on the PDF version does not render the document invalid. The admission of the State officers in some cases that documents bore no signature may be on account of ignorance of the working of the system, and the earlier decisions taking a contrary view did not have the benefit of the working of the GST system explained by the GST Network - The presence of a digital signature on the Forms is not a requirement on documents covered under Chapter XVIII, and show cause notices and orders electronically authenticated by the proper officer and uploaded on the common portal are valid documents in law, the contrary view not laying down the correct position of law - The Reference is answered accordingly - Service of show cause notice or order by upload on common portal - Additional Notices and Orders tab - Commencement of limitation - Section 169(1)(d) of the CGST Act, 2017 - Petitioners contended that uploading on the common portal cannot be construed as service as the taxpayer is not expected to keep looking at the portal; that limitation should run from actual retrieval, that notices placed in the Additional Notices tab were not seen, and that writ petitions were not barred by delay - Whether uploading of notices and orders on the common portal amounts to valid service and from what date limitation runs - HELD - Section 169(1) provides for service by any one of the methods prescribed, read disjunctively, and under Section 169(1)(d) making the notice or order available on the common portal amounts to service. Under Section 13(2) of the Information Technology Act, receipt occurs when the electronic record enters the designated computer resource, which is the common portal, so the date of upload is the date of receipt. The statute casts a duty of diligence on the taxpayer to make compliances through the common portal, including returns, refund claims and audit, failing which legal consequences follow - Where the portal carries a Note clarifying that notices and orders on adjudication and similar modules are available under the Additional Notices and Orders tab, a taxpayer cannot feign ignorance of service for notices issued after the Note, though the question for notices uploaded earlier was left open for the appropriate forum. Since the notices and orders are valid, the bar of limitation for approaching the writ court on the ground of availability of a statutory remedy is attracted - Uploading on the common portal is valid service, and limitation to avail statutory remedy or to make other compliances runs from the date of upload - The petitioners are allowed liberty to file statutory appeals within two weeks, raising such other grounds - The Reference is answered accordingly - Requirement of Document Identification Number or Reference Number on notices and orders - Petitioners contended that the impugned orders did not quote the Document Identification Number as required by the Board's circulars binding under Section 168, and that the later circular dispensing with it where the Reference Number is shown operates only prospectively - Whether notices and orders not quoting the Document Identification Number are invalid - HELD - The Circulars issued by the Board and adopted by the State are binding on the Revenue under Section 168, and orders which do not quote the Document Identification Number or the Reference Number are not fit to be relied upon. The later Circular clarifies that for communications through the common portal bearing a verifiable Reference Number, quoting of the DIN is not required. Nothing in it makes it prospective, so the document should reflect either number, failing which the order would not be valid in law. The Reference Number is a valid authentication mechanism, verifiable by the taxpayer on the portal - In the individual writ petitions either the Reference Number or the Document Identification Number was quoted in the notices and orders, and they cannot be held invalid on this ground - The Reference is answered accordingly - Maintainability of reference to Full Bench on conflicting Division Bench decisions - Writ petitions were referred to the Full Bench on the issue of unsigned show cause notices and orders, in view of conflicting decisions of coordinate Division Benches on the application of Rule 26(3) of the CGST Rules, 2017 - Petitioners questioned the reference on the ground that the referral order did not frame the questions or indicate any conflict and that the Chief Justice could not authorise a reference administratively - Whether the reference to the Full Bench is maintainable - HELD - Three coordinate Benches had taken conflicting views, one holding the contrary view to be per incuriam, and the earlier Benches did not have the benefit of the live demonstration of the working of the common portal by technical experts of the GST Network. Judicial discipline requires that if two Division Benches of the same High Court take different views, the matter should be referred to a larger Bench, and one Division Bench cannot ignore or refuse to follow an earlier Division Bench of the same Court - There is no infirmity in the referral order.
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