Appealing to the GST Appellate Tribunal — Limitation, Pre-Deposit and Which Bench

Most GST disputes never reach the Appellate Tribunal, and that is the right outcome. The cheapest place to fix a problem is the scrutiny notice; the next cheapest is the reply to the show cause; after that it is the first appeal. By the time you are drafting a second appeal you have already paid for the argument several times over.

But some disputes do get there, and the rules governing the second appeal are less forgiving than the first. The limitation clock has an unusual starting point. The pre-deposit stacks on top of the one you already paid. And the date your appeal is treated as filed is not necessarily the date you filed it.

Quick answer

The second appeal lies to the Appellate Tribunal under section 112, within three months of the order being communicated or the date notified by the Government, whichever is later — with three further months available on sufficient cause. The pre-deposit is the admitted amount in full plus 10% of the remaining disputed tax, in addition to what you already paid at the first appeal, capped at ₹20 crore. On payment, section 112(9) deems recovery of the balance stayed. The filing fee is ₹1,000 per ₹1 lakh involved, between ₹5,000 and ₹25,000.

Who this is for

Anyone holding an order of the Appellate Authority under section 107 or of the Revisional Authority under section 108, and deciding whether to take it further. Also anyone on the receiving end of a departmental appeal, who has forty-five days to do something most respondents do not realise they can do.

The two-tier structure

The pre-deposit is the number to internalise early. It is not 10% in total across both stages. Section 112(8)(b) requires ten per cent of the remaining tax in dispute "in addition to the amount paid under sub-section (6) of section 107". Two bites, each capped at ₹20 crore under the CGST Act — and each mirrored under the State Act, which is a separate levy with its own cap.

When the clock starts, and why that is genuinely unsettled

Section 112(1), as it now reads:

"Any person aggrieved by an order passed against him under section 107 or section 108 … may appeal to the Appellate Tribunal against such order within three months from the date on which the order sought to be appealed against is communicated to the person preferring the appeal; or the date, as may be notified by the Government, on the recommendations of the Council, for filing appeal before the Appellate Tribunal under this Act, whichever is later."

Two separate things push the start date forward.

First, the notified date. The words after the semicolon were inserted to deal with the obvious problem that limitation cannot sensibly run against a forum that is not yet receiving appeals. The Government may notify a date, and the three months run from the later of communication and that date.

Second, the Removal of Difficulties Order. CBIC's own footnote to section 112 records the CGST (Ninth Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2019, under which the start of the three-month period is to be considered the later of (i) the date of communication of the order, or (ii) the date on which the President or the State President, as the case may be, of the Appellate Tribunal after its constitution under section 109, enters office.

This article deliberately does not tell you a date. A complete enumeration of Central Tax notifications up to the CBIC repository's current ceiling did not locate the notification contemplated by section 112(1) — it may sit in a different notification series, since the two Tribunal notifications discussed below are S.O.-series rather than the usual G.S.R. series. Publishing a specific date we could not source from a primary instrument would be exactly the kind of confident error that costs someone an appeal.

What you should do instead: treat the statutory rule as the framework, and confirm the operative date and the status of the bench with jurisdiction over you before computing limitation. If your order is already old, that verification is the first task, not the last.

Section 112(3) applies the same "whichever is later" formulation to departmental applications, which the Commissioner may direct within six months of the order. Section 112(6) allows the Tribunal to admit an appeal three months after the section 112(1) period expires, or an application three months after the section 112(3) period, on sufficient cause.

The pre-deposit, worked

Section 112(8), quoted:

"No appeal shall be filed under sub-section (1), unless the appellant has paid— (a) in full, such part of the amount of tax, interest, fine, fee and penalty arising from the impugned order, as is admitted by him, and (b) a sum equal to ten per cent. of the remaining amount of tax in dispute, in addition to the amount paid under sub-section (6) of section 107, arising from the said order, subject to a maximum of twenty crore rupees…"

And its proviso, for penalty-only orders:

"Provided that in case of any order demanding penalty without involving demand of any tax, no appeal shall be filed against such order unless a sum equal to ten per cent. of the said penalty, in addition to the amount payable under the proviso to sub-section (6) of section 107 has been paid by the appellant."

A worked example. Assume an adjudication order confirms ₹3 crore of CGST plus interest and penalty. Assume you admit ₹50 lakh of it and dispute ₹2.5 crore.

On top of that sits the State Act mirror, which carries its own ₹20 crore cap and is a separate payment.

The compensation is section 112(9): "Where the appellant has paid the amount as per sub-section (8), the recovery proceedings for the balance amount shall be deemed to be stayed till the disposal of the appeal." That is an automatic statutory stay on the remaining ₹2.25 crore of CGST, attaching on payment and requiring no separate application. It is the strongest reason to make the pre-deposit early in the limitation period rather than on the last day.

Figures are illustrative. The admitted and disputed splits are assumptions stated so you can substitute your own; the percentages, the cap and the stay are from the section.

The fee, and the ceiling that surprises people

Rule 110(5) sets the filing fee:

"The fees for filing of appeal or restoration of appeal shall be one thousand rupees for every one lakh rupees of tax or input tax credit involved or the difference in tax or input tax credit involved or the amount of fine, fee or penalty determined in the order appealed against, subject to a maximum of twenty five thousand rupees and a minimum of five thousand rupees"

Its proviso fixes ₹5,000 for an appeal against an order "not involving any demand of tax, interest, fine, fee or penalty", and Rule 110(6) provides that there is no fee for a rectification application under section 112(10).

The ceiling matters more than the rate. At ₹1,000 per ₹1 lakh the fee would be ₹3 lakh on a ₹3 crore order — but it is capped at ₹25,000. The filing fee is therefore never the constraint. The pre-deposit is.

The filing-date trap in Rule 110

Rule 110 makes the date of filing turn on acknowledgements, and it contains a genuine trap.

The appeal goes in electronically in FORM GST APL-05, and a provisional acknowledgement in Part A of FORM GST APL-02A issues immediately. A final acknowledgement in Part B, carrying the appeal number, issues on removal of defects. The Explanation is unambiguous: "the appeal shall be treated as filed only when the final acknowledgement, indicating the appeal number, is issued."

Then the two branches, from Rule 110(4):

• If the order appealed against is uploaded on the common portal, the **date of the provisional

acknowledgement** is treated as the date of filing.

• If it is not on the portal, you must submit or upload a **self-certified copy of the order within

seven days** of filing APL-05 to keep that date.

• If the self-certified copy goes in after those seven days, "the **date of submission or uploading of

such self-certified copy shall be considered as the date of filing of appeal**."

That last branch is how an appeal filed comfortably inside limitation becomes an appeal filed outside it. If the order you are challenging is not on the portal — which is common for older orders and for some State jurisdictions — the self-certified copy is not administrative tidying. It is load-bearing, and it has its own seven-day clock.

Cross-objections: the right most respondents miss

Section 112(5) gives the party against whom an appeal has been preferred a right that is easy to overlook:

"On receipt of notice that an appeal has been preferred under this section, the party against whom the appeal has been preferred may, notwithstanding that he may not have appealed against such order or any part thereof, file, within forty-five days of the receipt of notice, a memorandum of cross-objections … against any part of the order appealed against and such memorandum shall be disposed of by the Appellate Tribunal, as if it were an appeal presented within the time specified."

So a taxpayer who accepted an adverse finding at the time — perhaps because the overall order was tolerable, or because the pre-deposit was not worth it — can put that finding back in play once the department appeals, without having filed an appeal of its own and without paying to file one. Rule 110(2) requires the memorandum electronically in FORM GST APL-06, with manual filing only where the Registrar permits by special or general order. Section 112(6) allows forty-five further days on sufficient cause.

Forty-five days from receipt of notice is short. If a departmental appeal lands, the first question is not only how to defend it but what you would want to reopen.

Which bench, and the place-of-supply rule

Section 109(2) vests the Tribunal's jurisdiction in the Principal Bench and the State Benches.

• Section 109(3): the Principal Bench sits at New Delhi and consists of the President, a Judicial

Member, a Technical Member (Centre) and a Technical Member (State).

• Section 109(4): State Benches, constituted on a State's request at places recommended by the

Council, consist of two Judicial Members, a Technical Member (Centre) and a Technical Member (State).

• Section 109(5): both hear appeals from the Appellate Authority or the Revisional Authority — but the

first proviso reserves to the Principal Bench alone any case "in which any one of the issues involved relates to the place of supply".

That proviso does real work. Place of supply decides whether a transaction bore IGST or CGST plus SGST, and it is one of the most commonly disputed issues in GST. If it is any one of your issues, the whole case is heard in New Delhi, wherever your business is. Two further provisos reserve section 171(2) anti-profiteering matters to the Principal Bench, and allow the Government to notify other classes of case for it.

Two functions the Government has moved to the Principal Bench

The Principal Bench has been given work beyond ordinary appeals, by two notifications worth knowing about because they change where a particular kind of dispute is decided.

Notification 18/2024-Central Tax, dated 30 September 2024, in force 1 October 2024, issued under section 171(2) read with section 109(1) and the second proviso to section 109(5), empowers the Principal Bench "to examine whether input tax credits availed by any registered person or the reduction in the tax rate have actually resulted in a commensurate reduction in the price of the goods or services or both supplied by that registered person." That is the anti-profiteering function, moved to the Tribunal.

Notification 02/2026-Central Tax, dated 7 May 2026 (S.O. 2286(E)), deemed in force 1 April 2026, issued under section 101A(1A), empowers the Principal Bench, constituted under section 109(3), "to hear appeals made under section 101B" — appeals against advance rulings, previously the province of the National Appellate Authority for Advance Ruling.

One citation warning on that second one. The gazette first carried it as 18/2024, and a footnote on its face records that "the numbers and figures '18/2024' shall be read as '02/2026'" per Corrigendum S.O. 2349(E) dated 8 May 2026. Since 18/2024-Central Tax is a different and live notification — the anti-profiteering one above — anyone citing by number should cite 02/2026 and know why both numbers appear in circulation.

Before you appeal: three things worth checking

Whether the order was even valid to begin with. Section 75(7) provides that the order "shall not be in excess of the amount specified in the notice" and that "no demand shall be confirmed on the grounds other than the grounds specified in the notice". An order that travels beyond its own show cause is vulnerable on its face. Section 75(4) requires an opportunity of hearing where requested in writing or where an adverse decision is contemplated, and section 75(5) allows adjournment for sufficient cause, up to three times.

Whether the proceedings had already lapsed. Section 75(10) deems adjudication proceedings concluded if the order is not issued within the period allowed by section 73(10), section 74(10) or section 74A(7). Departmental delay can be dispositive.

Which demand regime your period falls under. Sections 73 and 74 are now confined to periods up to FY 2023-24, and section 74A governs FY 2024-25 onwards with different time limits and a sixty-day rather than thirty-day window to pay and close. Arguing a 2024-25 demand against section 73's timetable is a common and expensive error — our GST notice guide and the GST notice reply service page both work through it.

The honest conclusion

An appeal to the Tribunal costs a further 10% of the disputed tax on top of the first 10%, a fee of up to ₹25,000, and a limitation calculation with two moving parts. It buys you a statutory stay on the balance and a bench with judicial and technical members on it.

That is a reasonable bargain on a genuinely arguable point of law. It is a poor one on a reconciliation that could have been explained at the ASMT-10 stage two years earlier, which is what a meaningful share of GST litigation actually is. If a notice is currently sitting on your desk, the highest-value work available to you is answering it properly — see GST notice reply — not planning the appeal.

We do not promise outcomes at any stage, and nobody honestly can: the department and then the Tribunal decide. What is within your control is whether the record you hand them is complete and whether you are inside your dates.

Sources and currency

Applies to: India, CGST Act 2017 and CGST Rules 2017 as in force on 20 August 2026

Sections 107, 109, 110 and 112 and Rule 110 were read in full on CBIC's live repository on 20 August 2026, and Notifications 18/2024-Central Tax and 02/2026-Central Tax were read as decoded PDF text from the CBIC notification repository on the same day. One gap is stated rather than filled. Section 112(1) allows the appeal period to run from a date notified by the Government for filing appeals before the Tribunal, whichever is later. A complete enumeration of Central Tax notifications to the CBIC repository's ceiling of approximately 30 June 2026 did not locate that notification, which may sit in a different notification series. This article therefore states the statutory rule and does not state a date. Confirm the current notified date, and the operational status of the bench with jurisdiction over you, before relying on any limitation calculation.

• CGST Act 2017, section 107 — appeals to the Appellate Authority and the first pre-deposit
• CGST Act 2017, section 109 — constitution of the Appellate Tribunal and its Benches
• CGST Act 2017, section 110 — President and Members of the Appellate Tribunal
• CGST Act 2017, section 112 — appeals to the Appellate Tribunal, limitation, cross-objections and pre-deposit
• CGST Rules 2017, Rule 110 — FORM GST APL-05, acknowledgements, the date of filing and the fee scale
• CGST Act 2017, section 75 — general provisions on determination of tax, including the right to a hearing
• Notification 18/2024-Central Tax, 30 September 2024 — empowers the Principal Bench to examine anti-profiteering under section 171(2)
• Notification 02/2026-Central Tax, 7 May 2026 — empowers the Principal Bench to hear section 101B appeals against advance rulings
• Notification 12/2024-Central Tax, 10 July 2024 — clause 21 substitutes Rule 110