What Section 93 Really Does After Jaiwanti, Gita Rani Pan and V. Damayanti
The death of a sole proprietor does not necessarily extinguish a GST exposure. But neither does Section 93 authorise the Department to adjudicate against a person who no longer exists. Three 2026 High Court decisions now supply the missing procedural map: the liability may survive, the estate may answer, and fresh proceedings may begin after death but the notice must reach the living representative, the underlying contravention must still be proved, and recovery cannot outrun the statute or the estate.
A difficult GST problem begins with a deceptively simple fact: the taxpayer is dead. The instinctive responses tend to be equally simple. One side says that a proceeding against a dead person is a nullity; the other points to Section 93 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (CGST Act) and says that tax, interest and penalty can still be determined after death. Both propositions are correct, but only when kept in their proper compartments.[1]
The distinction matters in practice. A sole proprietorship has no corporate personality separate from its proprietor. Once the proprietor dies, the Department cannot continue to write to the deceased as though the person still exists. At the same time, Parliament has expressly provided for what happens to GST liabilities attached to the deceased’s business and estate. The real question, therefore, is not whether death ends every fiscal consequence. It is who must be proceeded against, under which charging or penalty provision, through what adjudicatory machinery, and to what extent recovery can follow.
Section 93 is a transmission rule not a procedural shortcut
Section 93(1) creates two distinct post-death routes. If the business is continued after the death by a legal representative or another person, the person continuing it becomes liable to pay the tax, interest or penalty due from the deceased. If the business is discontinued, the legal representative is liable only out of the deceased’s estate and only to the extent that the estate is capable of meeting the charge. Crucially, the closing words cover amounts determined before death but left unpaid as well as amounts “determined after his death”.[2]
That language answers the survival question, but it does not turn Section 93 into a self-contained show-cause, assessment or penalty code. The underlying liability must still be created and determined under the appropriate substantive and machinery provisions historically Sections 73 or 74 and, for tax periods from FY 2024-25 onwards, Section 74A.[3] Section 93 tells us whose estate or representative can answer for a liability after death; it does not dispense with notice, evidence, hearing, limitation or a reasoned determination.
The same structural point is reinforced by Section 29(3). Cancellation of registration does not wipe out pre-cancellation liabilities or obligations, whether the dues are determined before or after cancellation.[4] Death and cancellation may change the person to whom the process must lawfully be addressed; they do not, by themselves, erase the underlying statutory exposure.
V. Damayanti: fresh proceedings can begin after death
The Madras High Court confronted the hardest version of the issue in V. Damayanti v. Superintendent of GST and Central Excise. The proprietor had died in March 2019, the business was discontinued, and no assessment proceeding had been initiated during his lifetime. Years later, proceedings were taken against his widow in relation to FY 2018-19. The argument was that “determined after his death” should be confined to completion of a proceeding already commenced while the taxpayer was alive.[5]
The Court rejected that restriction. It emphasised that Section 74 used the wider expression “person chargeable with tax”, not merely “taxable person”, and read Section 93 as expressly imposing a statutory liability on the legal heir in the circumstances defined by that provision. Once the statute permits a liability to be determined after death, the adjudicatory process may include the issue of a notice after death as well.[6]
The holding was explicit: even where the business has been discontinued and no notice or assessment proceeding began during the proprietor’s lifetime, fresh proceedings may be initiated against the legal heir under Sections 73, 74 or 74A, subject to Section 93. In a discontinued-business case, however, the legal heir’s exposure remains limited to the inherited estate capable of meeting the charge.[7]
The decision is important for another reason. It resists importing the machinery of a different fiscal statute into GST. The CGST Act must be read on its own terms. That approach is consistent with the Supreme Court’s recurring insistence that taxing statutes be applied as enacted, without adding words because a different policy outcome appears more equitable.[8]
Gita Rani Pan: a valid liability cannot be built on an invalid addressee
Two months later, the Calcutta High Court supplied the procedural counterweight. In Gita Rani Pan v. Union of India, the proprietor had died on 20 May 2021. Yet a Section 74 show-cause notice dated 8 March 2022 was issued in his name. His widow had obtained a fresh GST registration for the business on her own PAN and the Department was aware of the changed circumstances. The authority nevertheless proceeded on the notice addressed to the deceased and later passed an order raising demand, interest and penalty.[9]
The Court held that a show-cause notice issued in the name of a dead person is null, non-est and void ab initio. Section 93(1)(b) may make a legal representative liable to the limited extent contemplated by the statute, but the determination cannot be carried out against a non-existing person. The notice must be issued to the legal representative, who must be given an opportunity to respond and be heard.[10]
The remedy chosen by the Court is as significant as the defect it identified. It quashed the show-cause notice, the Order-in-Original and the recovery notice, but did not treat the tax issue as extinguished. The Department was permitted and directed to issue a fresh notice to the legal heirs and adjudicate in accordance with law, with liability confined to the estate as required by Section 93(1)(b).[11]
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A procedural nullity may defeat the proceeding that was chosen. It does not necessarily defeat the statutory liability that Parliament has preserved.
Jaiwanti: Section 93 survives constitutional scrutiny, but the heir is not the wrongdoer
The Delhi High Court’s Division Bench decision in Jaiwanti v. Union of India, delivered on 25 September 2026, brings the two strands together. The Court considered a notice issued more than three years after the taxpayer’s death, proposing penalty consequences in relation to alleged conduct of the deceased and invoking Section 93 against his widow as legal representative. The challenge went beyond service and merits: Section 93(1)(b) itself was attacked as arbitrary.[12]
The Court held that the phrase “is determined after his death” contains no hidden requirement that a show-cause notice must have been issued during the deceased’s lifetime. The statutory power to determine after death flows from Section 93 itself. A gap of years after death is not, merely because it is a gap after death, a separate bar under Section 93 although every independent statutory limitation defence remains open.[13]
At the same time, the Bench drew an essential line between the deceased’s alleged contravention and the representative’s liability. Section 93 is not an independent penal provision against the legal representative. The substantive basis for a penalty must be found elsewhere in Jaiwanti, the notice relied on Section 122(3)(a). Section 93 addresses what happens to the monetary consequence after death; it does not deem the widow or heir to have committed the deceased’s alleged wrong.[14]
That distinction carried the constitutional analysis. The underlying contravention still has to be proved. The representative must receive the relied-upon material and an effective opportunity of hearing. The Court specifically noted that the representative’s inability to give a first-hand account of the deceased’s affairs cannot be treated as an admission. Section 126(3) and the appellate remedy under Section 107 form part of those procedural safeguards.[15]
The Court therefore rejected the Article 14 challenge to Section 93(1)(b), applying the settled presumption of constitutionality and the latitude generally accorded to economic legislation, while leaving factual and merits issues to the statutory appellate process.[16]
Is there really a conflict between the High Courts?
Read superficially, Gita Rani Pan may appear taxpayer-protective while V. Damayanti and Jaiwanti appear Revenue-protective. The better reading is that they operate at different stages of the same statutory scheme.
| Question | Position emerging from the 2026 cases |
| Can a GST liability be determined after the proprietor’s death? | Yes. Section 93 expressly contemplates post-death determination, subject to the applicable demand/penalty provision and limitation. |
| Must proceedings have started before death? | No, according to V. Damayanti and Jaiwanti. Fresh proceedings may begin after death where Section 93 applies. |
| Can the SCN be issued in the deceased person’s name? | No. Gita Rani Pan treats such a notice as a nullity. The living legal representative must be brought into the proceeding in that capacity. |
| Does Section 93 make the heir personally guilty of the deceased’s contravention? | No. Jaiwanti treats Section 93 as a representative/estate-liability provision, not an independent penal provision against the heir. |
| How far can recovery go if business is discontinued? | Only against the estate of the deceased and only to the extent that the estate is capable of meeting the charge. |
There is, in other words, no licence to “convert” a notice issued to the deceased by simply calling upon the heir to reply. The correct addressee is not a technicality. It determines who receives the allegations, who can demand the relied-upon documents, who can raise limitation and jurisdiction, who can dispute the factual foundation, and who can appeal. Gita Rani Pan is therefore entirely compatible with the proposition that a fresh proceeding against the legal representative may be lawfully commenced after death.[17]
The penalty problem: survival is not automatic personal culpability
Penalty deserves separate treatment because it is easy to collapse two different ideas: the survival of a monetary consequence and personal culpability. A provision such as Section 122 identifies the contravention and the person on whom the penalty is substantively founded. Section 93 then addresses post-death liability in the situations it covers.[18]
For the Department, that means the show-cause notice should state with precision (i) the conduct attributed to the deceased, (ii) the statutory provision under which tax or penalty is proposed, (iii) the basis on which Section 93(a) or 93(b) is invoked, (iv) whether the business was continued or discontinued, (v) the identity and status of the legal representative, and, where clause (b) is invoked, (vi) the estate against which recovery is said to lie. Treating “legal heir” as a substitute expression for “noticee who committed the contravention” invites exactly the confusion Jaiwanti cautions against.
For the legal representative, the defence is equally two-layered. It is legitimate to contest the underlying contravention, evidentiary record, quantification, limitation and penalty ingredients. Separately, the representative can contest whether Section 93 applies at all, whether the correct clause applies, whether the estate was inherited, the value and identity of that estate, and whether the proposed recovery exceeds the estate’s statutory exposure.
Limitation did not die with the taxpayer
None of the three decisions creates an unlimited post-death window. Section 93 answers the effect of death; it does not override the time limits attached to the relevant demand provision. For tax periods up to FY 2023-24, the applicable Section 73 or Section 74 framework remains material. For FY 2024-25 onwards, Section 74A supplies the consolidated demand regime and expressly applies to those later financial years.[19]
This is a point worth stressing after Jaiwanti. The Delhi High Court rejected the proposition that the mere lapse of more than three years after death bars Section 93 proceedings. That is different from holding that limitation can be ignored. The notice must still survive the limitation rule that governs the underlying statutory action.[20]
A practical protocol for post-death GST proceedings
The emerging jurisprudence suggests a straightforward compliance and litigation protocol. Once the Department learns that a sole proprietor has died, it should stop addressing adjudicatory documents to the deceased; verify whether the business is being continued; identify the legal representative or person continuing the business; issue the statutory notice to that living person in the correct representative capacity; disclose the relied-upon material; and identify the precise Section 93 route on which recovery is proposed. If the business has been discontinued, the adjudication and recovery record should expressly recognise the estate ceiling.
The legal representative should not assume that a defective notice permanently extinguishes the demand. A writ challenge may succeed where the notice is issued to the deceased, but the likely consequence — as Gita Rani Pan demonstrates may be a fresh, properly constituted proceeding. The more durable defence lies in preserving every substantive and procedural point: jurisdiction, limitation, service, evidence, ingredients of fraud or penalty, quantification, hearing, estate valuation and the statutory appeal.
The right to be heard is especially important in these cases because the person with first-hand knowledge is unavailable. Section 75(4), where attracted in the adjudicatory setting, and Section 126(3) in the penalty context should be applied as real safeguards rather than ritual opportunities. An heir cannot be expected to recreate the deceased’s commercial memory; the Department’s own documentary case therefore assumes greater significance.[21]
Conclusion: tax may survive death, adjudication must remain alive to due process
The 2026 cases move GST law away from an unhelpful binary. “Proceedings against a dead person are void” is not the same proposition as “the liability dies with the person”. Section 93 was enacted precisely because some tax, interest and penalty consequences may survive. But survival does not cure a notice addressed to someone who is no longer alive, erase limitation, dispense with proof, or transform an heir into the author of the deceased’s conduct.
The coherent rule is narrower and more defensible: the State may pursue a liability that the CGST Act preserves after death, including through proceedings commenced after death, but it must proceed against the correct living representative, under the correct substantive provision, within the applicable time limit, with full adjudicatory safeguards, and where the business is discontinued only against the estate to the extent Section 93(1)(b) permits.
For practitioners, that distinction is more than doctrinal neatness. It determines whether the right objection is “there can be no demand” or the much stronger and more precise objection: “this demand has been constituted against the wrong person, by the wrong process, or beyond the estate Parliament made answerable.”
*About the author. Sumit Kumar is an Advocate practising before the High Court at Calcutta and a Partner at Harvey Legal LLP. His work spans corporate, taxation, regulatory and dispute-resolution matters. He is also the Founder of The Lord’s Consultancy and writes on GST, corporate law and regulatory litigation.
[1]Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (CGST Act), s 93(1); see also V. Damayanti v. Superintendent of GST and Central Excise, W.P.(MD) No. 10000 of 2026, decided 16 June 2026, paras 4–4.10; Gita Rani Pan v. Union of India, W.P.A. No. 10402 of 2025, decided 27 August 2026, paras 19–30; Jaiwanti v. Union of India, 2026:DHC:8282-DB, W.P.(C) 7254/2025, decided 25 September 2026.
[2]CGST Act, s 93(1)(a)–(b). The provision expressly covers tax, interest or penalty determined before death but unpaid, or determined after death.
[3]CGST Act, ss 73, 74 and 74A. Section 74A was inserted by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024 and applies to determination of tax pertaining to FY 2024-25 onwards: s 74A(12); Notification No. 17/2024-Central Tax dated 27 September 2024 brought the relevant amendment into force from 1 November 2024.
[4]CGST Act, s 29(3).
[5]V. Damayanti v. Superintendent of GST and Central Excise, W.P.(MD) No. 10000 of 2026, decided 16 June 2026, paras 2.1–3.6.
[6]V. Damayanti, paras 4.4–4.7. The Court held that the expression “person chargeable with tax” is not confined to the defined expression “taxable person” and that the post-death adjudicatory process may include issuance of notice.
[7]V. Damayanti, para 4.10.
[8]Chief Commissioner of CGST v. Safari Retreats (P) Ltd., 2024 INSC 756, discussed in V. Damayanti, para 4.9. See also the general rule against supplying omissions in a taxing statute in Shabina Abraham v. Collector of Central Excise & Customs, (2015) 10 SCC 770 : 2015 SCC OnLine SC 664.
[9]Gita Rani Pan v. Union of India, W.P.A. No. 10402 of 2025, decided 27 August 2026, paras 1–5.
[10]Gita Rani Pan, paras 19–22. The Court relied, inter alia, on the principle that proceedings cannot be validly constituted in the name of a deceased person and distinguished the creation of representative liability from the machinery used to determine it.
[11]Gita Rani Pan, paras 23–30. The Court directed issuance of a fresh show-cause notice to the legal heirs and required adjudication after reply and opportunity of personal hearing, with liability confined to the estate under s 93(1)(b).
[12]Jaiwanti v. Union of India, 2026:DHC:8282-DB, W.P.(C) 7254/2025, decided 25 September 2026. The Division Bench comprised Anil Kshetarpal and Vimal Kumar Yadav JJ.
[13]Jaiwanti, especially the Court’s construction of s 93 permitting proceedings to be commenced after death and rejecting a lifetime-SCN condition precedent. The Court did not treat the lapse after death as an independent limitation rule under s 93.
[14]Jaiwanti, para 25 (as reported in the judgment summaries and source materials): s 122(3)(a) supplied the substantive penalty basis; s 93 was not treated as an independent penal provision against the legal representative.
[15]CGST Act, ss 126(3) and 107; Jaiwanti, paras 28 and 35, emphasising an effective hearing, supply of relied-upon material and the representative’s right to contest the statutory basis and amount.
[16]Jaiwanti, para 36; R.K. Garg v. Union of India, (1981) 4 SCC 675 (presumption of constitutionality and latitude in economic legislation).
[17]Gita Rani Pan, paras 23–29; V. Damayanti, para 4.10. Read together, the cases distinguish an invalid proceeding against the deceased from a fresh proceeding lawfully constituted against the legal representative.
[18]CGST Act, ss 93 and 122. See Jaiwanti, 2026:DHC:8282-DB, on the distinction between the substantive contravention/penalty provision and representative liability after death.
[19]CGST Act, ss 73(12), 74(12) and 74A(12), as inserted/amended by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024. Section 74A applies to determination of tax pertaining to FY 2024-25 onwards.
[20]Jaiwanti, 2026:DHC:8282-DB. The Court’s ruling on the absence of a death-based time bar under s 93 does not dispense with the limitation regime governing the underlying statutory proceeding.
[21]CGST Act, ss 75(4) and 126(3). See also Jaiwanti on the need for an effective opportunity of hearing where first-hand knowledge died with the taxpayer.
The views expressed are personal and intended for legal analysis and discussion.