Coca-Cola just won a 3-year GST battle: here’s the Rs 45 lakh verdict

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages has won a three-year-long legal battle against an e-waste recycler, after a Bengaluru commercial court ordered the recycler to pay Rs 45.2 lakh in outstanding dues, with 12% annual interest calculated from the date the suit was filed.

The dispute began in March 2023, when Coca-Cola’s Kodigehalli Gate unit in Bengaluru signed an agreement with Uttar Pradesh-based Hin Green E-Waste Recycling Pvt Ltd, handing the recycler full and exclusive responsibility for collecting, removing and disposing of e-waste across all of Coca-Cola’s offices and facilities in the country.

For financial year 2022-23, the recycler’s invoices for this scrap-disposal work were billed at 5% GST. But when Coca-Cola reviewed its annual returns, it found the applicable rate had actually been revised to 18%, retrospectively effective from 18 July. The company emailed the recycler a revised table of scrap items reflecting the higher rate, and followed up with a credit note and a revised debit note.

Coca-Cola also reminded the recycler by email to claim input tax credit while filing its October 2023 returns. The recycler replied acknowledging receipt and promising to share details ‘in due course’ — a promise it never kept. Coca-Cola argued that since the recycler had itself already sold goods at 18% GST and deposited that tax with the government, its refusal to settle the corresponding dues was indefensible, and that any failure to claim input tax credit was its own negligence.

Repeated reminder emails only drew a flat denial of liability from the recycler on 20 March 2024, by which point Rs 45.2 lakh remained outstanding. A legal notice sent on 15 July 2025 went unanswered, and pre-institution mediation collapsed after the recycler failed to show up, closing as a ‘non-starter’.

Coca-Cola sued in March 2026. The recycler appeared through counsel but never filed a written statement of defence. Going through the unchallenged evidence, 85th additional city civil and sessions judge Arjun S Mallur at the Commercial Court held the recycler liable, ordering it to pay Rs 45.2 lakh with 12% annual interest until realisation, along with costs.

Wikimedia Commons/by M0tty