Goods and Services Tax is an indirect tax used in India on the supply of goods and services. It is a comprehensive, multistage, destination-based tax: comprehensive because it has subsumed almost all the indirect taxes except a few state taxes. Goods and Services Tax is a destination-based, multi-stage, comprehensive tax levied at each stage of value addition.

Tax laws (or any law) impose obligations. Such obligations are broadly of two kinds: tax-related and procedure-related. The taxpayer’s compliance with these obligations is verified by the tax officer (through audit, anti-evasion, examining etc.). Sometimes there are situations of actual or perceived non-compliance. If the difference in views persists, it results into a dispute, which is then required to be resolved.

The initial resolution of this dispute is done by a departmental officer by a quasi-judicial process resulting into the issue of an initial order known by various names -assessment order, adjudication order, order-in-original, etc.

GST Act defines the phrase “adjudicating authority” as any authority competent to pass any order or decision under this Act, but does not include the Board, the First Appellate Authority and the Appellate Tribunal. Thus, in a way, any decision or order passed under the Act is an act of “adjudication”.

Some examples are:- cancellation of registration, best judgment assessment, decision on a refund claim, imposition of a penalty.

No. As per the GST Act, CGST & SGST/UTGST officers are both empowered to pass orders. As per the Act, an order passed under CGST will also be deemed to apply to SGST. However, if an officer under CGST has passed an order, any appeal/review/ revision/rectification against the order will lie only with the officers of CGST. Similarly, for SGST, for any order passed by the SGST officer the appeal/review/revision/rectification will lie with the proper officer of SGST only.