GST notices run on forms
and clocks. We know both.

GST notices announce themselves by form number, and the form tells you the stakes. ASMT-10 is a scrutiny of your returns pointing at mismatches. GSTR-3A chases unfiled returns. DRC-01A is the department’s intimation before a show-cause. DRC-01 is the show-cause itself, under section 73 where no fraud is alleged, under section 74 where it is; for periods from FY 2024-25 onwards, both situations travel under one common provision, section 74A. REG-17 threatens your registration. ADT-01 opens a departmental audit.

• Find it on the portal first: every genuine notice appears under View Notices and Orders against your GSTIN. Verify the reference number before acting on anything that arrives by mail alone.
• Check the GSTIN and the period. Groups with multiple registrations regularly answer for the wrong one, and a reply on the wrong GSTIN helps nobody.
• Note which Act and which officer: Centre and State both issue notices, and the reply goes to the authority that asked.

An ASMT-10 is answered in ASMT-11, and the answer that works is a reconciliation: your books, your returns and the department’s figures in one table, with every difference explained and documented. A DRC-01A intimation is the chance to settle or contest before a show-cause is born. A DRC-01 show-cause is answered in DRC-06, and where anything adverse is proposed, you are entitled to a personal hearing and should take it.

• Agree with part of it? Tax can be paid voluntarily in DRC-03, which narrows the dispute to what is genuinely contested.
• Section 73 rewards early resolution: settle at the right stage and penalty falls away entirely. Section 74 has its own graded ladder where early payment caps the penalty. Which window you are in decides the strategy.
• Ask for the hearing in writing, attend it, and file a written submission recording what was argued.

The proceeding ends in an order with a DRC-07 summary, and the demand becomes recoverable if unpaid within three months. As with income tax, read the computation before reacting: ITC credited wrongly reversed, a period double-counted, interest computed on the gross instead of the net. Obvious errors go back to the same officer for rectification; real disputes go up in appeal.

• Rectification of errors apparent on the record has its own window, far shorter than people assume. Move fast or lose the cheap remedy.
• Paying under protest through DRC-03 is sometimes the right commercial call while the appeal runs. It stops interest without conceding the issue.

The first appeal goes to the Appellate Authority in Form APL-01 within three months of the order, with one further month condonable for sufficient cause. Filing needs a pre-deposit: the admitted amounts in full, plus a fixed percentage of the disputed tax, after which recovery of the balance stays. The appeal itself is won on grounds, drafted as independent attacks on each demand component: tax, interest and penalty each on their own feet.

• The pre-deposit percentage and its caps are set by statute and have been revised in recent Finance Acts; we compute the exact figure for your order before filing.
• Certified copies, the DRC-07 reference and payment proofs travel with the appeal; defects bounce filings and burn limitation days.
• A well-run first appeal is also the record for everything after it. Every document you will ever need goes in now.

The GST Appellate Tribunal is now functioning, and orders of the Appellate Authority travel to it in Form APL-05 with a further pre-deposit on the disputed tax. Because the Tribunal is new, limitation windows for older orders run from notified dates rather than the order itself, which is a trap and an opportunity: some long-pending matters are still in time.

• Tribunal practice is record-driven: the reconciliations, hearing submissions and evidence from stages two and four are what get argued.
• Beyond the Tribunal lie the High Court on questions of law, and that is a different engagement entirely.

Not every GST notice is about a demand. REG-17 proposes cancelling your registration and allows seven working days to reply in REG-18, with revocation routes if cancellation has already struck. RFD-08 proposes rejecting a refund and is answered in RFD-09. Each side-track has its own tight clock, and each can quietly strangle a business while the main dispute gets all the attention.

• A cancelled registration stops your customers’ input credit the day it bites. Treat REG-17 as the most urgent paper on the desk.
• Refund rejections are frequently cured by documentation the officer never saw. Ask what was missing before assuming the claim failed on law.