Short answer: in July 2026 three High Courts held that a notice which exists only as an upload under "View Additional Notices and Orders" has not been served under Section 169 of the CGST Act. The department's contrary authority is a Madras High Court line, and the Supreme Court issued notice on the question on 10 August 2026. If you have an ex parte order on a notice you never saw, this is a live ground. If you replied to the notice, it is not.
The point is procedural, it is jurisdiction-sensitive, and it is worth far more than it looks, because it decides not just the order but when your appeal clock started.
Section 169(1) sets out how a notice, order or any other communication under the Act is to be served. It is a list, and any one item on it is sufficient:
| Limb | Mode |
|---|
| (a) | Given directly or by messenger, including a courier |
| (b) | Registered post, speed post or courier, with acknowledgement due |
| (c) | Email to the address provided at the time of registration or as amended |
| (d) | Making it available on the common portal |
| (e) | Publication in a newspaper circulating where the person was last known to reside or carry on business |
| (f) | Affixing at the last known place of business or residence, and if that is not practicable, on the notice board of the officer |
Section 169(2) deems service complete when the communication is tendered, published, or affixed. Section 169(3) deems a document sent by registered or speed post received on the day it would ordinarily arrive.
On its face, limb (d) is a complete answer for the department. The argument that has now succeeded in three High Courts turns on a different section.
Section 146 is where the "common portal" comes from. It lets the government notify a portal "for facilitating registration, payment of tax, furnishing of returns, computation and settlement of integrated tax, electronic way bill and for carrying out such other functions and for such purposes as may be prescribed."
The portal was notified under Section 146 by Notification 4/2017-Central Tax. The Punjab and Haryana High Court's reading in Luxmi Traders v Union Territory of Chandigarh (CWP 27139 of 2025, decided July 2026) is that the notification covers registration, payment, returns and the listed functions, and that service of notices and orders is not among them. Limb (d) of Section 169 exists, but the portal has never been designated as the place where that limb operates. Until it is, an upload is not service.
The same judgment closed the other door the department leans on. The portal sends an automated email saying that a notice has been issued. The court held that an email which does not attach the notice is not service by email under limb (c) either. The recipient has to receive the document, not a pointer to it.
The court then did three things with that finding:
- the ex parte proceedings were sent back to the show-cause stage, so the taxpayer could reply and be heard;
- the appeal limitation was held to run from the date of valid service, not the upload date; and
- it recorded a caveat that is the most important line in the judgment for anyone reading it now: a taxpayer who actually participated cannot later challenge service on this ground.
Separately from the Section 146 argument, there is a narrower point that has been succeeding for two years: the portal has two tabs. "View Notices and Orders" is where most people look. "View Additional Notices and Orders" is where scrutiny notices, DRC-01s and adjudication orders have tended to be posted. Nothing on the first tab tells you the second one has something in it.
- Himachal Pradesh High Court, Alder Crafts v State of HP (2 July 2026) quashed the notice and the recovery that followed, because the upload was under the "Additional" tab and the assessee had no actual knowledge of it.
- Calcutta High Court, Raju Ghosh v State of West Bengal (16 July 2026) held that hosting a notice under "Additional Notices and Orders" breached natural justice and set aside the adjudication and recovery orders.
- Delhi and Madras benches had earlier treated an "Additional" tab upload as incomplete service where the taxpayer had no other intimation, which is the line the Supreme Court petition below relies on.
GSTN redesigned the notice screens in 2024 so that both tabs sit together, and for notices issued since then the "I could not find it" argument is weaker. For older notices, and for anyone who genuinely never opened the second tab, it survives.
This is not settled law, and the department has authority of its own.
The Madras High Court in Poomika Infra Developers v State Tax Officer held that an upload on the portal is complete service under Section 169(1)(d), and that a registered person has a continuing obligation to check the portal. A Rajasthan High Court bench dismissed a writ on the same basis in a matter involving a demand of about ₹14 crore, and that dismissal is now the subject of GVK Jaipur Expressway v Deputy Commissioner of State Tax, SLP(C) 25965 of 2026. The Supreme Court issued notice on 10 August 2026 and asked for responses within four weeks. The petition frames precisely the question above: whether an upload, particularly under the "Additional" tab, is service.
Until the Supreme Court decides, the position is the one that always applies to divided High Court authority: your own High Court binds; the others persuade. In Karnataka, there is no controlling decision either way, which means a Bengaluru taxpayer pleads the Punjab and Haryana, Himachal and Calcutta reasoning as persuasive and the department pleads Madras.
Three things, in descending order of value.
1. The appeal clock. Section 107 gives three months from the date the order is communicated, with one further month the appellate authority may condone. Nothing beyond that. Most people who discover an ex parte order find it after four months, usually when recovery starts or a bank account is attached. If the upload was not valid service, communication happened when you actually received the order, and the appeal is in time. That single point converts a hopeless position into an ordinary one.
2. The order itself. An order passed without a valid notice is an order passed without hearing you, and Section 75(4) makes a hearing mandatory where an adverse decision is contemplated. The remedy the courts have been giving is to restore the matter to the show-cause stage, which means you reply on the merits with the benefit of knowing the department's case. The order and the recovery under it fall away meanwhile.
3. Where the appeal is already dead. If the order is more than four months old and no appeal was filed, the appellate route is closed by Section 107(4). The only way back is a writ petition, and this is one of the few grounds on which High Courts have been consistently willing to entertain one. It is not a certainty; it is a real prospect, and it is better than the alternative, which is none.
Be honest about this before building on it. The defence fails where:
- You replied, sought time, or appeared. Participation cures service. The Punjab and Haryana court said so in terms.
- The notice also went by email to the registered address, with the document attached. That is limb (c), independent of the portal.
- It went by post with an acknowledgement, or was handed over. Limbs (a) and (b).
- Your registered email was a consultant's who received it and did nothing. The law treats the address on the registration as yours.
So the first job on any order found late is to reconstruct the service history: both portal tabs, the registered email inbox including spam, the mobile number's SMS log, and whether anything came by post. The ground is only as good as that record.
- Make sure the email and mobile on the registration are yours and are read. Section 169(1)(c) means a notice emailed there is served whether or not you open the portal.
- Check both notice tabs at least monthly. Under Services, then User Services: "View Notices and Orders" and "View Additional Notices and Orders".
- Where a notice does turn up, identify which rung of the ladder it is on. The reply windows and forms are set out in GST notices: from ASMT-10 to a demand, and answering early is always cheaper than arguing service later.
For an order that has already been passed, the sequence is: freeze the recovery if it has started, establish the service record, compute limitation from the date of actual receipt, and choose between an appeal under Section 107 and a writ. That choice depends on the dates and on which High Court you are in, and it should be made before anything is filed, because the two routes are not interchangeable.
The wider position on demands, limitation and procedural defences is on the tax notice reply page.
The validity of portal-only service is unsettled as at the date above: the High Courts are divided and the Supreme Court has issued notice but not decided. This note describes the state of the authorities; whether the ground is available for a particular order depends on the service record, the dates and the jurisdictional High Court, and should be confirmed against them before anything is filed.