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The Allahabad High Court in W.T. No. 141/2023 has quashed the penalty which was imposed because of the production of expired e-way bill, decided that as there is no intention to evade tax which was established by the authorities and subsequently there was no dispute regarding consignor and consignee and the description of the goods, the penalty could not be imposed on the grounds for a technical error.

The brief facts pertaining to this case are:

• The goods of the petitioner were intercepted and the e-way bill had expired, wherein no discrepancies were found between the goods and the invoices and the other e-way bill.
• The petitioner stated the reason for the expiry of the e-way bill due to the breakdown of the vehicle and the letter of the mechanic who repaired the vehicle along with the ‘fast-tag’ chart was produced before the court as evidence.
• The petitioner has relied on the decision of the Allahabad High Court in the case M/S “Pepsico India Holdings Limited Lucknow v. Commissioner of Trade Tax and Jain Shudh Vanaspati Limited Ghaziabad and Others v. State of U.P. and Others”, wherein the petitioner contended that the penalty could not be imposed on the grounds of requisite documents with the goods.
• Decision: The court has quashed the order of the penalty because without having the intention to evade tax, the penalty couldn’t be sustained under Section 129(3) based on technical errors.