The Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) has disposed of 83 cases out of 75,155 cases filed before it, according to data available on the tribunal’s portal as of Sunday. Of the total cases filed, 5,819 have been registered.
As many as 3,492 cases were filed in August alone, taking the cumulative number of filings above 75,000. The principal Bench in New Delhi has received 7,306 cases, of which 134 have been registered and seven disposed of, leaving 127 pending, the portal showed.
The GSTAT efiling portal became operational on September 24, 2025. The government subsequently extended the deadline for filing appeals before the tribunal by a month to July 31, citing technical difficulties caused by a rush of filings.
Vivek Jalan, partner at Tax Connect Advisory Services, said the GSTAT Benches were now functioning at full strength under the president, vice-presidents and members of the principal and state Benches. He said recent rulings, including Sterling Williamson and Power Tech Global, indicated that the tribunal was beginning to provide substantive clarity on GST disputes.
According to Jalan, the principal Bench in the Sterling Williamson case held that invocation of Section 74 of the Central GST Act on grounds of fraud, suppression or wilful misstatement requires evidentiary proof rather than mere assertion. He said the Kolkata Bench had reaffirmed the principle in Power Tech Global.
“Taxpayers now anticipate justice in appeals dismissed on limitation grounds,” Jalan said, adding that this was in line with the GSTAT president’s indication on proper service of notice.
Justice (retd) Sanjaya Kumar Mishra, president, GSTAT, had on Friday expressed concern over the low number of cases filed before the tribunal, saying 74,758 cases had been filed against an expected 200,000-250,000. The number has since risen to 75,155, according to data on the GSTAT portal.
The first appellate authority is generally a commissioner (appeals)-level officer whom a taxpayer can approach against an order or decision issued by a lower-level tax officer. GSTAT is the second appellate authority and provides a forum for taxpayers and tax authorities to resolve disputes. Mishra said around 350,000 cases had earlier reached the first appellate authority, indicating the potential pool of cases that could come before GSTAT. However, there is no conclusive data on the number of cases disposed of by first appellate authorities, as many cases were also filed manually.
“I was expecting something like 200,000-250,000 cases. I don’t know why the number of cases filed is fewer. It may be that businesses have closed down; maybe they were cases of fake input tax credit claims,” Mishra said.
To help taxpayers whose appeals were nearing the July 31 deadline, GSTAT introduced a token facility on its efiling portal. Taxpayers who generated a token by July 31 were given 60 days to complete the filing of their appeals.
As of the figures cited by the GSTAT head on Friday, around 30,000 tokens had been issued, of which 28,024 were still live, and only 969 had been used. Mishra urged tax professionals, lawyers, and industry to make greater use of the filing mechanisms.