How to generate an E-way Bill if the goods are rejected by the recipient

After the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act was passed in India, there has been a significant push towards ensuring transparency of corporate transactions through increased stringency of compliance. One such compliance requirement is the necessity of generating an Electronic Way Bill (E-way Bill) on the GST Portal (ewaybillgst.gov.in) if goods worth Rs. 50,000/- or more are being transported from one place to other.

An E-way bill may be generated if goods of more than Rs. 50,000/- in value are being transported on account of a supply activity, sales return, or inward supply by an unregistered person. In case a person or company transports goods worth Rs. 50,000/- or more without generating an E-way Bill, it would attract penalty or Rs. 10,000/- or the amount of tax sought to be evaded (whichever is greater) and also detention or confiscation of goods and conveyance. But how would one generate an E-way Bill if the goods are rejected by their intended recipient? This article seeks to shed more light on the same.

There are two possibilities where goods can be rejected:

Possibility 1: Goods are lying in the warehouse of the transporter and have been rejected by the recipient without receiving them. This means they have to be returned back to the godown of the supplier.

Possibility 2: Goods were received by the recipient but he declined to accept them on account of the goods being damaged, faulty, or different from what was ordered.

There are different aspects to consider when you have to generate an E-way bill for the above two situations. ‘Express GST’ our GST filing product has an in-built feature to help you with the same, and the following are ways in which you could generate an E-way Bill using the Express GST application:

Possibility 1: There are two different situations that could arise. Either the E-way Bill is generated by the transporter or the supplier. The following is what could be done in either case:

Situation A: The transporter is generating an E-way Bill due to sales return from the point of his location to the supplier’s location.

In this case, the transporter can mention URP (Un-Registered Person) as the GSTIN of the supplier, while the ‘Dispatch Address’ would be the location of the transporter’s godown.

Situation B: The supplier is generating an E-way Bill due to sales return from transporter’s location to his own location.

In this case, he can mention either the GSTIN of the transporter or mention URP in the Supplier GSTIN column, while the ‘Dispatch Address’ would be the location of the transporter.

Possibility 2: In this scenario, the goods are delivered to the intended recipient, however at the time of delivery, the intended recipient chooses to reject the goods due to damage, faulty products received, or some other consignment received. In this case, the supplier needs to generate an E-way Bill from the location of the intended recipient to the supplier’s location. Hence, he needs to mention the GSTIN of himself i.e. the Supplier and address of the intended buyer.

In both the above possibilities, a delivery challan has to be issued. This delivery challan is issued for sales return and would not be reflected in GSTR 1. As seen in the article above, the Express GST app would make the work of generating E-way Bills very quick and seamless in less than a second and everything within your accounting software.