Notification No.: 37/2021 – Central Tax
Date of Notification: 1st December 2021.
Relevant Sections and Rules
Central GST Act, 2017:
- Section 164 – Power to make rules.
CGST Rules, 2017 (Ninth Amendment Rules, 2021):
- Rule 137 (substituted words on tenure).
- FORM GST DRC-03 (heading, item 3 options, item 5 text, and table under S. No. 7 substituted).
Integrated GST Act, 2017:
- Not applicable.
Summary of Notification
1) Short title & commencement:
The Central Goods and Services Tax (Ninth Amendment) Rules, 2021 are notified and, unless otherwise provided, come into force on the date of publication in the Official Gazette. This frames the effective date for the amendments below.
2) Anti-profiteering Rule—tenure extended (Rule 137):
In Rule 137, the words “four years” are substituted by “five years”, with effect from 30 November 2021. Practically, this extends the tenure specified in Rule 137 by one year, aligning continuity of anti-profiteering oversight.
3) DRC-03 heading expanded to cover DRC-01A intimations:
In FORM GST DRC-03, the heading now expressly includes “intimation of tax ascertained through FORM GST DRC-01A”, allowing payments/part-payments in response to pre-SCN intimations to be recorded in DRC-03.
4) DRC-03 – broader reason codes at Item 3:
At Item 3 (column 3), the list is widened from “Audit, investigation, voluntary, SCN, annual return, reconciliation statement, others” to also include inspection, scrutiny, DRC-01A intimation, mismatch (GSTR-1 vs GSTR-3B), mismatch (GSTR-2B vs GSTR-3B), etc., standardising disclosures for various compliance triggers.
5) DRC-03 – Item 5 text aligned to additional use-cases:
Against Item 5 (column 1), text after “within 30 days of its issue” is expanded to reference scrutiny, DRC-01A intimation, audit, inspection or investigation, reflecting the broader contexts in which DRC-03 may be used.
6) DRC-03 – Table under S. No. 7 substituted:
The table at S. No. 7 is replaced to capture granular details such as Tax Period, Act, Place of supply (POS), Tax/Cess, Interest, Penalty, Fee, Others, Total, Ledger utilised (Cash/Credit), Debit entry no., Date of debit entry, improving traceability of payments and ledger utilisation.