2021 (3) TMI 858

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....ner to seek a stay on the investigation for the reasons articulated therein. On 22.02.2021, the writ petition came up for hearing for the first time before this Court. A perusal of the said order shows that one of the issues which the Court had flagged was that issues raised in the instant writ petition overlapped with issues that had been raised by the petitioner in the writ petition filed before the Allahabad High Court.   1.1 Therefore, the Court had indicated to the learned counsel for the parties, on that date, that the best course of action, perhaps, would be that the petitioner be relegated to the Allahabad High Court. 1.2 It is in this context, the Court had called upon the learned counsel for the respondents, to take ins....

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....i.e., Mr. Vipin Sharma. 3. The record shows that search has been carried out not only by the Gautam Budh Nagar Commissionerate but also by various Intelligence Units, i.e., DGGI Regional Unit Kanpur, DGGI Zonal Unit Delhi, DGGI Regional Unit Ghaziabad and DGGI Ahmadabad Zonal Unit on various dates. 3.1 The details of these searches are given in the Panchnama drawn up on 13.02.2021 by the DGGI Ahmedabad Zonal Unit. Pertinently, this unit also carried out the search at the petitioner's premises located in Gautam Budh Nagar. (See pages 224 and 226 of the paper book.) 4. Ms. Manish says that repeated searches, not only by Gautam Budh Nagar Commissionerate, but also by other Intelligence Units, are completely oppressive and in fact, the....

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....ted by the Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court in 'M/s. Bhawani Textiles vs. Additional Director General, 2020 (35) G.S.T.L. 36 (Guj.)'. In addition thereto, Ms. Manish has also relied upon a judgment rendered in 'Himanshu Balram Gupta vs. Union of India 2020-TIOL-2241-HC-AHM-GST'. 5.2 On the issue concerning invasion of privacy, reliance was placed, once again, on the judgment of the Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court, rendered in 'Sureshbhai Gadhecha vs. State of Gujarat, R/Special Civil Application No. 23279 of 2019.' 6. On the other hand, Mr. Ravi Prakash, who appears on behalf of the respondents, says that the circular dated 05.10.2018, will have no application since the "subject matter" is different. In support of his....

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....ionerate, as far back on 19.03.2020, the other Intelligence units should have held their hands. For this purpose, it would be necessary to extract the relevant portions of the circular dated 05.10.2018. "2. In this regard, GST Council in its 9th meeting held on 16.01.2017 had discussed and made recommendations regarding administrative division of taxpayers and concomitant issues. The recommendation in relation to cross-empowerment of both tax authorities for enforcement of intelligence based action is recorded at para 28 of Agenda note no. 3 in the minutes of the meeting which reads as follows:   'viii. Both the Central and State tax administrations shall have the power to take intelligence-based enforcement action in....