Best Judgment Assessment of Non-Filers: Section 62

A monthly return that is not filed does not simply stay unfiled. Within days the portal sends a notice in FORM GSTR-3A. If the return still is not filed, an officer may assess the tax without it, in an order in FORM GST ASMT-13, using whatever material the department has. The figure is often far above what the business would have declared. Recovery can follow at once, because the order’s summary in DRC-07 is itself the notice for recovery. Yet the order is easy to undo, if the person acts in time. Filing a valid return within the period the Act allows makes the order “deemed to have been withdrawn”. Everything turns on that period.

This guide covers the notice, the order, the withdrawal, what survives it, and what remains once the period has passed. The late fee and interest themselves are covered in Late Returns: Late Fee, Interest, the Three-Year Bar and Notices.

Which returns the section covers

Section 62(1) applies “where a registered person fails to furnish the return under section 39 or section 45, even after the service of a notice under section 46”. Section 39 covers GSTR-3B and the other periodic returns, including those of composition taxpayers, tax deductors, input service distributors and non-resident taxable persons. Section 45 covers the final return, GSTR-10, filed after cancellation.

Three filings are outside it:

• GSTR-1. It is a statement under section 37, not a return under section 39.
• The annual return. Section 46 allows a notice for a missing return under section 44, but section 62 does not refer to section 44. The consequence of a late annual return is the late fee under section 47(2).
• The TCS statement under section 52. Rule 68 extends GSTR-3A to it, but section 62 does not.

What to have ready

Item	Where it comes from
The list of unfiled returns, with due dates	Portal, return dashboard
The GSTR-3A notice, and its date	Portal: Services > User Services > View Notices and Orders
The ASMT-13 order, its DRC-07 summary, and the date of service	Portal: View Notices and Orders
Outward supplies for each unfiled period, reconciled with any GSTR-1 already filed	Books; GSTR-1
Credit available for the period	GSTR-2B; books
E-way bills for the period, since the officer may have used them	E-way bill portal
Cash for the tax, interest and late fee	Electronic cash ledger

Step 1: the notice, GSTR-3A

Section 46 requires “a notice … requiring him to furnish such return within fifteen days”. Rule 68 prescribes FORM GSTR-3A, issued electronically. The form says that if the return is not filed within fifteen days, the “tax liability may be assessed u/s 62 of the Act, based on the relevant material available with this office”. It adds three things:

• “no further communication will be issued for assessing the liability”;
• “in addition to tax so assessed, you will also be liable to pay interest and penalty as per provisions of the Act”; and
• the notice “shall be deemed to have been withdrawn in case the return referred above, is filed by you before issue of the assessment order”.

A separate version of the form is used for the final return after cancellation. CBIC’s Circular No. 129/48/2019-GST of 24 December 2019 sets the sequence for Central tax officers. A system message goes out after the due date, and GSTR-3A is issued “Five days after the due date”. The Circular also confirms that “no separate notice is required to be issued for best judgment assessment under section 62”. The GSTR-3A is the only notice.

Step 2: the order, ASMT-13

Where the return is still not filed, the proper officer “may proceed to assess the tax liability of the said person to the best of his judgement taking into account all the relevant material which is available or which he has gathered”. The section opens with “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in section 73 or section 74 or section 74A”. No show cause notice under those sections is needed. For Central tax the proper officer is the Superintendent (Circular No. 3/3/2017-GST).

Circular 129 lists the material the officer may use. It names GSTR-1, “details of supplies auto-populated in FORM GSTR-2A, information available from e-way bills, or any other information available from any other source, including from inspection under section 71”. In deserving cases, the Commissioner may provisionally attach property under section 83 before the order is issued.

Under rule 100(1), the order “shall be issued in FORM GST ASMT-13 and a summary thereof shall be uploaded electronically in FORM GST DRC-07”. By rule 142(6), the DRC-07 summary “shall be treated as the Notice for recovery”.

ASMT-13 records the return type and the GSTR-3A reference. It sets out introduction, submissions, findings and conclusion, and a table of tax, interest, penalty and other amounts. The form says interest is “calculated up to the date of passing the order”, and that interest to the date of payment must be added. Section 62 itself speaks only of assessing “the tax liability”. It contains no penalty provision of its own.

Time limit. The order must issue “within a period of five years from the date specified under section 44 for furnishing of the annual return for the financial year to which the tax not paid relates”. This was checked against CBIC’s text of the section on 13 October 2026. The Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024 inserted only the words “or section 74A” into sub-section (1), from 1 November 2024, and left the five years unchanged. The limit is longer than the forty-two months allowed for a show cause notice under section 74A for the same years.

Step 3: withdrawal by filing a valid return

Section 62(2) provides:

“Where the registered person furnishes a valid return within sixty days of the service of the assessment order under sub-section (1), the said assessment order shall be deemed to have been withdrawn but the liability for payment of interest under sub-section (1) of section 50 or for payment of late fee under section 47 shall continue.”

A proviso adds a second window:

“Provided that where the registered person fails to furnish a valid return within sixty days of the service of the assessment order …, he may furnish the same within a further period of sixty days on payment of an additional late fee of one hundred rupees for each day of delay beyond sixty days of the service of the said assessment order and in case he furnishes valid return within such extended period, the said assessment order shall be deemed to have been withdrawn, but the liability to pay interest under sub-section (1) of section 50 or to pay late fee under section 47 shall continue.”

Both changes were made by section 148 of the Finance Act, 2023, with effect from 1 October 2023 (Notification No. 28/2023-Central Tax). Before then the period was thirty days, with no second window. FORM GST ASMT-13 has not been amended and still tells the person that the order is withdrawn if the return is furnished “within a period of 30 days”. The section, not the form, governs.

Three points decide whether a filing works:

• The clock runs from service of the order, not from its date.
• The return must be a valid return. Section 2(117) defines it as “a return furnished under sub-section (1) of section 39 on which self-assessed tax has been paid in full”. A return filed without paying the tax does not withdraw the order. The definition refers only to section 39(1). Whether a late GSTR-10 counts is discussed in Filing the Final Return, GSTR-10.
• The cost depends on the window. In the first sixty days, the person pays the tax, interest under section 50(1) and the ordinary late fee. In the second sixty days, an additional late fee of Rs 100 a day for each day beyond the sixtieth is added.

The portal’s user manuals on assessment do not describe this step separately. The return is filed in the ordinary way. A July 2026 order of the Andhra Pradesh High Court shows the system at work. In M/s Vijayawada Tiles and Sanitary v State of Andhra Pradesh (W.P. No. 1919 of 2026, 21 July 2026), the GSTR-3B for May 2024 was filed after an ASMT-13 of 6 August 2024. The late fee was paid on 3 February 2026. The State’s instructions to the Court recorded that the GST Network then issued a “DEEMED WITHDRAWAL OF ASSESSMENT ORDER - ASMT-13” and withdrew the DRC-07 demand the next day. The Court directed that no recovery be made under the order.

What survives the withdrawal

The order goes, but three liabilities stay:

• Interest under section 50(1), at 18 per cent, from the due date of the return to the date of payment. Its proviso limits interest on a late return to “that portion of the tax that is paid by debiting the electronic cash ledger”. The limit does not apply where the return is filed “after commencement of any proceedings under section 73 or section 74 or section 74A” for the period. Section 62 is not among the sections named.
• Late fee under section 47, at the notified rates and caps.
• The additional late fee under the proviso, where the second window is used.

The amounts and caps are set out in the guide on late returns.

The three-year bar

Since 1 October 2023, section 39(11) bars filing a return “after the expiry of a period of three years from the due date”. Section 45 has no equivalent bar for the final return. A section 62 order may be passed up to five years from the due date of the annual return, so an order can arrive when the return it requires can no longer be filed. In that case the withdrawal under section 62(2) depends on the barred return being opened. The portal’s application for unbarring returns, and the open question about its legal basis, are described in the guide on late returns.

Missing the window: what the courts have said

The Act gives no power to extend either sixty-day period. The High Courts differ on what follows when a return is filed late.

Strict. In Wild Tree Resorts by the Legend Pvt Ltd v State Tax Officer (Kerala High Court, WP© No. 35124 of 2019, 19 December 2019), best-judgment orders had been passed for August 2017 to March 2018. The returns were not filed within the thirty days then allowed. The Court held that the confirmation of the orders “cannot be said to be illegal or unjustified”. It left the petitioner to its appeal, and kept recovery in abeyance for a month so that the appeal could be filed.

Directory. The Madras High Court has repeatedly taken the opposite view. In Tvl. Hi Version v Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (W.P.(MD) Nos. 4026 and 4027 of 2025, 17 February 2025), orders for February and April 2023 had been passed in April and June 2023. The returns, with interest and late fee, followed in January 2024, the delay being put down to ill-health. The Court reasoned that the officer could have assessed at any time within five years. In that case the person would have had sixty days from that later date to file, so an early order should not shorten the right. It held that the sixty-day limit “appears to be directory in nature”. It directed the person to apply for condonation of the delay, and the officer to consider the application on its merits.

In Tvl. Texzone India v State Tax Officer (FAC) (W.P.(MD) No. 8164 of 2026, 26 March 2026), the order was for December 2024. The State argued that the proviso “categorically contains an outer condonable limit”. It also said that its appeal against the earlier judgments was pending before a Division Bench, at the condonation-of-delay stage. The Court followed the “consistent view” that the period is directory and that “once the return is filed even belatedly, the assessment order should no longer survive”. It quashed the order and left the year to be dealt with in the further assessment.

The Hi Version judgment sets out section 62(2) without the proviso added in 2023. No Supreme Court decision on the point was found. Until the Division Bench rules, the position differs between States.

Earlier relief, now closed

Notification No. 06/2023-Central Tax of 31 March 2023 gave a one-time route for orders served on or before 28 February 2023 where the thirty days had been missed. The order was treated as withdrawn if the return was filed, with interest and late fee, by 30 June 2023. That date was extended to 31 August 2023 by Notification No. 24/2023-Central Tax. The relief applied “irrespective of whether or not an appeal had been filed against such assessment order”. It has expired.

If the order stands

• Appeal. ASMT-13 is an order under the Act, appealable under section 107 within three months of communication, with the pre-deposit. See Appeals and Pre-Deposit.
• Recovery. Circular 129 says that once the period passes, the officer “may initiate proceedings under section 78 and recovery under section 79”. It was written when the period was thirty days. The recovery procedure is in Recovery, and Paying in Instalments.
• Registration. The Circular also directs action under section 29(2) where returns are not filed for the period that section specifies. See Responding to a Notice Proposing Cancellation.

Who signs

The return that withdraws the order is filed and verified in the ordinary way by the authorised signatory, with DSC or EVC. An appeal is filed in APL-01 and verified the same way.

The procedure in order

1. On a GSTR-3A, note the fifteen days. A return filed before the assessment order withdraws the notice.
2. On an ASMT-13, note the date of service, not the date of the order. The first sixty days run from service.
3. Reconcile outward supplies and credit for the period, and file the return with the tax paid in full, so that it is a valid return.
4. Pay interest under section 50(1) and the late fee under section 47.
5. If the first sixty days have passed, file within the next sixty days and pay the additional late fee of Rs 100 a day.
6. Check that the portal shows the order as deemed withdrawn and the DRC-07 demand as withdrawn.
7. If the return is barred by the three-year limit, the portal’s unbarring application is the only route the portal provides.
8. If both windows have passed, the remedies are an appeal under section 107 within three months of communication, or the Madras High Court’s route of an application for condonation, which is under appeal.

The next guide covers assessment of a person who should have registered but did not, or whose registration was cancelled, under section 63.