For almost the entire life of GST, taxpayers who lost before the First Appellate Authority had nowhere sensible to go. The forum the statute promised — the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal under Section 109 of the CGST Act, 2017 — simply did not exist in working form, leaving the High Courts to absorb a flood of writ petitions that were never meant for them. That structural gap has now closed. The GSTAT commenced operations on 24 September 2025, with a Principal Bench in New Delhi and 31 State Benches spread across 44 locations, and it is accepting appeals through a dedicated e-filing portal.
The most urgent item on any tax director’s calendar in 2026 is the backlog window. To clear an accumulated mountain of orders — reportedly in excess of four lakh — the framework provides a staggered, one-time filing facility for legacy matters. The headline date is unforgiving: appeals against orders issued before 1 April 2026 must be filed by 30 June 2026. For orders issued on or after 1 April 2026, the ordinary limitation applies — three months from the date of communication of the order. Businesses sitting on adverse orders they had effectively shelved, because no tribunal existed to hear them, must now revisit those files immediately or risk losing the right of appeal altogether.
The Principal Bench carries jurisdiction the State Benches do not. It hears disputes where the question is one of place of supply, certain anti-profiteering matters, and — sitting as the National Appellate Authority for Advance Rulings — it resolves conflicting advance rulings issued by different States. Standard appeals are heard by a two-member bench comprising one Judicial and one Technical Member; matters where the tax, input tax credit or penalty in dispute does not exceed ₹50 lakh, and which raise no significant question of law, may be heard by a single member. Understanding which bench will hear a matter is the first step in building the appeal.
It is the pre-deposit arithmetic, however, that determines commercial feasibility. To maintain an appeal before the GSTAT and stay recovery, a taxpayer must deposit 100% of the admitted liability plus 10% of the disputed tax, over and above the amount already deposited at the first-appeal stage. The 10% tranche is capped at ₹20 crore under CGST and a further ₹20 crore under SGST; in penalty-only matters, the requirement is 10% of the disputed penalty. Where an appeal succeeds, the pre-deposit is refundable, and under Section 115 of the CGST Act interest is payable on that refund — at the rate prescribed under Section 56 — running from the date of the original deposit until it is repaid. For large demands, the cash-flow impact of the pre-deposit must be modelled before, not after, the decision to appeal.
Mechanically, appeals are filed online in Form APL-05, with fees set at ₹1,000 per ₹1 lakh of disputed tax or ITC, subject to a floor of ₹5,000 and a ceiling of ₹25,000. Taxpayers may appear in person or through authorised representatives — advocates, chartered accountants, cost accountants, company secretaries or GST practitioners. The digital-first design rewards preparation: a clean grounds-of-appeal, a properly computed pre-deposit and a complete record uploaded correctly are what separate an admitted appeal from a defective one.
We are advising clients to treat the months to 30 June 2026 as a triage exercise. Every legacy order should be sorted into three buckets — appeal (strong merits and material stakes), abandon (weak merits or immaterial amounts), and settle or rectify (where an error is administrative rather than substantive). This is the Litigation pillar of our TCL Framework™ in operation: technical command of the demand, a commercial read on whether the fight is worth the pre-deposit, and legal precision in the grounds. The tribunal’s arrival is a genuine opening for taxpayers — but only for those who move before the window closes.
