TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (4) TMI 85
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....fces carrying on their business from the said address. 4. Petitioner has rented out commercial premises on leave and license basis receiving license fees from the licensees. Since petitioner is required to pay goods and services taxes (GST) on such license fee, he is duly registered with the GST department and submitting GST returns regularly. 5. On 17.01.2020, ofce of respondent no.2 carried out search operations in the ofce address of the petitioner in respect of other companies having their ofces there, namely, Satra Retail Private Limited, Bleu Noir Infrastructes Private Limited, Prarush Impex and Minaxi Satra Ventures whereafter, summons under section 70 of the Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (briefy 'the MGST Act' hereinafter) were issued. However, no such search was undertaken against the petitioner and petitioner has not received any summons from the ofce of respondent no.2. 6. It is stated that petitioner had submitted GST returns till February, 2020 and had accordingly paid GST. However because of Covid-19 pandemic, petitioner had not received any license fee in respect of the rented premises from March, 2020 and accordingly no GST was deposi....
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.... out that there is a group of companies which are registered in the same place as that of the petitioner. In all these companies, family members of the petitioner or the petitioner himself are either proprietor/ director/shareholder. They are supplying goods and services to each other and making money transactions with each other. The names of the frms/companies and their proprietors/ directors/ shareholders are as under: SR. Name of Firm Name of Proprietor/Shareholders No. 1 Prarush Impex Proprietor- Shri. Rushabh Praful Satra (Son of Petitioner) 2 Satra Retail Pvt Ltd. Shareholders- Shri. Praful Nanji Satra 51% (Petitioner) Shri. Rushabh Patel Satra 49% (Son of Petitioner) Relatives of Key Managerial person- Shri. Praful Nanji Satra (Petitioner) Authorized Signatory- Shri. Praful Nanji Satra (Petitioner) 3 Satra Properties (India) Ltd. Director- Shri. Praful Nanji Satra (Petitioner) Shareholders- Shri. Praful Nanji Satra 26.21% (Petitioner) 4 Minaxi Satra Ventures Proprietor- Smt. Minaxi Praful Satra (Wife of Petitioner) 5 Praful Nanji Satra Proprietor- Shri. Praful Nanji Satra (Petitioner) 6 Bleu Noir Directors....
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....reiterated that to the best of his knowledge, no proceedings under sections 62, 63, 64, 67, 73 and 74 of the MGST Act were pending against him. From the reply afdavit of the respondents, it is evident that proceedings under section 67 of the MGST Act were initiated in respect of M/s. Prarush Impex with which petitioner is nowhere connected. That being the position, exercise of power under section 83 of the MGST Act qua the petitioner is not justifed. Impugned provisional attachment therefore cannot be justifed. In so far other business entities belonging to the petitioner's wife or son are concerned, it is contended that those are distinct business entities having separate legal identity. Thereafter, petitioner has given details of his relationship with the entities referred to by the respondents as under: "i. M/s. Prarush Impex - The entity is a proprietorship business of the Petitioner's son, Mr. Rushabh Satra and the Petitioner is unconnected to the business. ii. Satra Retail Private Limited - The Petitioner is neither a shareholder nor a director in this entity as on date and even on the date of investigation being carried on 17.01.2020. In fact, the P....
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....is 19.06.2020 which was however received by ICICI Bank Limited, Andheri West Branch on 23.06.2020. The provisional attachment order was issued under section 83 of the MGST Act and reads as under: "It is to inform that M/s. Praful Nanji Satra, having principal place of business at 201, 2nd Floor, DEV PLAZA, S.V. Road, Vileparle (West), Mumbai-400 058 bearing registration number as GSTIN-27AHZPS4559A3ZO, PAN- AHZPS4559A3 is a registered taxable person under SGST/CGST Act. Proceedings have been launched against the aforesaid taxable person under section 67 of the said Act to determine the tax or any other amount due from the said person. As per information available with the department, it has come to my notice that the said person has a current account in your bank having Account No.001101218141 (INR). In order to protect the interests of revenue and in exercise of the powers conferred under section 83 of the Act, I Dr. Amit Saini, I.A.S., Joint Commissioner State Tax, INV-A, Mumbai, hereby provisionally attach the aforesaid account. No debit shall be allowed to be made from the said account or any other account operated by the aforesaid person on the same ....
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....including bank account belonging to the taxable person; 3. In such a case, Commissioner may do so by making an order in writing. 20. Reading the provisions of sub-section (1) of section 83 as a whole, what is further deducible is that the pending proceedings should be relatable to the taxable person because it is the property of the taxable person which is sought to be provisional attached. 21. Sub-section (2) of section 83 provides that such provisional attachment shall cease to have efect after the expiry of a period of one year from the date of order made under sub-section (1). 22. Since the power under section 83 is vested in the Commissioner, it is necessary to refer to the defnition of Commissioner in the MGST Act. Section 2 (24) of the MGST Act defnes 'Commissioner' to mean the Commissioner of State Tax appointed under section 3 and includes the Principal Commissioner or Chief Commissioner of State Tax appointed under section 3. Though appointment of the Commissioner is made by the State Government under section 3, under sub-section (3) of section 5, the Commissioner may delegate his powers to any other ofcer who is subordinate to him, subject to su....
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....), M/s. Satra Retail Private Limited to give evidence and to produce documents before the Assistant Commissioner of State Tax (Investigation)-08, Mumbai immediately in proceedings of investigation under section 67 of the MGST Act and section 64 of Maharashtra Value Added Tax Act, 2002 in the case of M/s. Satra Retail Private Limited for the period from 01.07.2017 to till date. This summons to witness was issued under section 70 of the MGST Act read with the section 14 of the Maharashtra Value Added Tax Act, 2002 and section 30 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908. 26. From the above, it is evident that the search and resultant investigation was carried out in respect of M/s. Prarush Impex. Authorization under section 67 was given in respect of M/s. Prarush Impex, that too by an ofcer of the rank of Deputy Commissioner though as per section 67 such authorization should be by a proper ofcer not below the rank of Joint Commissioner There is no such authorization under section 67 of the MGST Act in respect of M/s. Praful Nanji Satra. Shri Praful Nanji Satra was summoned under section 70 of the MGST Act to tender evidence as a witness in connection with proceedings under section 67 of t....