Regular bail in alleged GST fraud declined after serious accusations of fictitious firms and wrongful input tax credit claims.

Regular bail under Section 439 CrPC was refused in a GST prosecution alleging large-scale fraud through fictitious firms and wrongful availment of input tax credit. The Court treated the accusations as serious, noted that the case was still at the pre-charge evidence stage, and considered the petitioner's custody since 20.06.2018. It also took account of the prior rejection of the petitioner's earlier bail request and the dismissal of co-accused's bail petitions, while treating bail granted to some other co-accused as insufficient to outweigh the gravity of the allegations. Regular bail was declined.

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Issues: Whether regular bail should be granted to the petitioner in a prosecution alleging offences under the goods and services tax law.

Analysis: The petition was for regular bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 in a case alleging large-scale GST fraud involving creation of fictitious firms and wrongful availment of input tax credit. The petitioner had been in custody since 20.06.2018, but the allegations were treated as serious and the case was still at the pre-charge evidence stage. Prior dismissal of the petitioner's earlier bail request and dismissal of co-accused's bail petitions were also noted, while the grant of bail to some other co-accused was not treated as sufficient to outweigh the gravity of the accusations.

Conclusion: Regular bail was declined.

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