Union of India vs Bharti Airtel Ltd. & Ors

Bench: 2 — A.M. Khanwilkar

In Brief

The Supreme Court reversed the Delhi High Court's direction permitting a registered person to rectify GST returns (Form GSTR-3B) for earlier periods. The Court held that registered persons must rely primarily on their own books of accounts and records for self-assessment of tax liabilities and input credit eligibility, not solely on auto-generated portal data. Although Form GSTR-2A was not operational in July–September 2017, the registered person could not use this as justification to retroactively amend prior-period returns. Errors must be corrected in the month when discovered, as per the statutory scheme. The impugned Circular restricting such rectification was upheld as consistent with law, preventing administrative chaos from cascading amendments affecting multiple stakeholders.

The lawyer headnote and full judgment text are available to registered users.

Goods and Services Tax GST Return Filing Input Tax Credit Form GSTR-3B Rectification of Returns Self-Assessment Constitutional Law – Article 14 Constitutional Law – Article 300A Administrative Law Tax Procedure

Read the full judgment & headnote. It's free.

Register to read the complete Supreme Court judgment text and the headnote, and to search 1 lakh+ Supreme Court judgments by meaning. It is a free service.