Ban on Deemed Approval of GST Registration Lifted

The GST department has recently announced that the ban on deemed approval of GST Registration shall now be lifted soon.

As we know that the country was under complete lockdown since 25th March 2020, on account of COVID-19 pandemic. There were many people who had filed applications for GST Registration, which were being deemed approved by the GST department during the lockdown. The Government had however discontinued the deemed approval of GST Registration with effect from 25th March 2020.

However, the Government has lifted the ban on deemed approval of GST Registration applications. To understand this update, we must first know the concept of deemed approval of GST Registration.

Provision for Deemed approval of GST Registration

As per Section 25(10) of the CGST Act 2017, read with Rule 9 of CGST Rules 2017, there is a proviso for deemed approval of the GST registration application.

In case the proper officer fails to process the GST application within the period of 3 working days, the said application is deemed approved by the GST department. Here, the GST registration applications that were filed before the lockdown, were being deemed approved by the GST department. However, the department had discontinued the deemed approval of GST applications w.e.f. 25th March 2020.

Reason for Ban on the deemed approval of GST application

Since the lockdown was imposed throughout the nation, across all govt. and private offices, there were no ‘working days. Yet, the pending GST applications were being deemed approved.

The central/ state tax offices were closed or were functioning with minimum staff.
Here, arose the apprehensions regarding the misuse of such deemed approval of GST application during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Hence, the GST department had finally decided to discontinue such deemed approval of GST application with effect from 25th March 2020.

As a result, all the deemed approved GST application were delayed.

Also, refer to the government notification:-