TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (10) TMI 1022
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....er, on 28.11.2020 at 7.30 a.m. The said raid was politically motivated to wreck vengeance on the petitioner. The respondent had not followed the procedure as contemplated under law for holding such raid, but they acted rudely, harassed the petitioner and his team. They indulged in aggressive and physical abuse. The nephew of the petitioner by name Sachin Amin was illegally detained and was taken away by the respondent-officers to an unknown location. They have ransacked the petitioner's house and seized the same after affixing summons under Section 70(1) of the CGST Act, calling upon the petitioner to be present before the respondent at 10.00 a.m. on 01.12.2020. The petitioner was also called upon to carry along with him the copies of invoices/bills from July 2017 till date, copies of balance sheet for the years 2017-2018 to 2020-2021 and copies of the agreement/contract. 3. It is stated that the petitioner is paying income tax regularly and the raid held on 28.11.2020 is only with an intention to disrupt the normal life of the petitioner in carrying on his business. It is stated that the petitioner is having in all 13 vehicles to carry on his business. The vehicles were purchased....
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....e Crl.P.2419/2020 DD 11.06.2020 to contend that the petition under Section 438 of Cr.P.C. is maintainable and the same is not barred under any law and further contended that the co-ordinate Bench of this Court considering similar set of facts and circumstances granted pre-arrest relief to the petitioner therein. Therefore, learned counsel seeks similar relief in favour of the petitioner. 8. Per contra, learned Standing Counsel for the respondent opposing the petition submitted that baseless allegations are made against the respondent without substantiating the same. He contended that on the basis of specific intelligence report received by the respondent regarding involvement of the petitioner in transportation of goods illegally, which were clandestinely removed by the traders without raising invoices as required under Section 31 of the CGST Act and without generating e-way bills as required under Rule 138 of CGST Rules. As per Rule 138A of the said Rules, the relevant documents need to be carried by the person in-charge of the conveyance and should be produced as and when required. When search was held on credible information, incriminating documents were found. The petitioner h....
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....ST Rules at the principal place of business. In the meantime, one Pramod and Sachin Amin who were concerned with the dealings of the petitioner were summoned and their statements were recorded on various dates. Both these persons have categorically stated regarding the misdeeds that are committed by the petitioner only with an intention to evade tax payable to the State. The respondent has not yet quantified the tax evasion by the petitioner, but, however, sufficient materials are collected to prove evasion of tax and commission of economic offences. 11. It is submitted that some of the e-way bills were found in the lorry belonging to the petitioner. Apparently, those e-way bills were found to be manipulated. In fact, e-way bills are generated which are valid only for one trip. But the petitioner by manipulating the e-way bill has claimed input tax credit without supply of goods. During investigation, various whatsapp communications were retrieved, which prima facie disclose grave economic offences. The respondent suspects that it is a racket having its links inter-state and crores of rupees of tax suspected to have been evaded by the petitioner. Under such circumstances, the peti....
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....nvestigation was still pending. This order of the High Court of Rajasthan was challenged by the accused before the Hon'ble Apex Court in SLP (Cri.) Nos.2547-2548 of 2020. The Hon'ble Apex Court vide order dated 23.06.2020 refused to interfere with the order passed by the High Court of Rajasthan (Jaipur Bench) rejecting the bail for the offences under Section 132(1), (B), (C), (D), (F), (I), (L) of CGSC Act, wherein the maximum punishment is 5 years and the petitioner was in judicial custody since 2 years. However, it has upheld the direction issued by the High Court to complete the investigation in a time bound manner while refusing to enlarge the petitioner on bail. 16. In Amit Beriwal Vs State of Odisha 2020 SCC Online Orissa 546, the High Court of Orissa, Cuttack, considered the allegations made against the accused that the bills were being procured from the firms at Delhi who had no purchasers, the tax which was not deposited for transaction was utilized by the firms for not only availing input tax credit, but for getting refunds by showing the sales to export units. The refunds were received for the tax which was actually never received by the revenue and under such circumsta....
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.... created by the unscrupulous fraudsters, one would fear, could lead to arrest of innocent businessmen and traders. However, a reading of the GST code would make it abundantly clear that it is rooted with several checks and balances to ensure that the initiation of prosecution or an arrest is to be made only after following due and elaborate process. 24. One cannot lose sight of the fact that the Governments are making their best efforts to enhance the ease of doing business, to reduce the burden on the tax payers, to make the procedures simpler with the use of new technologies. The Government officials have also been making all efforts to ensure efficient collection of tax, so that the burden on the genuine tax payers can be reduced. All these efforts cannot be permitted to be sabotaged by such criminals who prey on the public exchequer. The text book notion of tax collection needs to be overhauled by conjuring with the emerging technologies so as to get rid of practical hiccups. With these observations, the Court rejected the prayer for grant of bail. 17. In Vikas Goel Vs Dy. Dir., Directorate General of GST Intelligence, Gurugram 2019 (28) GSTL 590, the High Court of Punjab ....
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....conflicting interests is to be maintained. 20. In M/s Supreme Bhiwandi Wada Manor Infrastructure Pvt Ltd Vs The State of Maharastra and another SLP (Cri) No.3155/2018 DD 26.07.2021, the Hon'ble Apex Court considering various judgments on the subject, set aside the order of the High Court granting anticipatory bail under Section 438 of Cr.P.C to the accused, where serious allegations are made against the accused of fraudulent misappropriation of amounts and when the FIR sets out details of alleged act of fraud and misappropriation of funds. 21. In Pankaj Grover Vs Directorate of Enforcement, Govt. of India, Lucknow Crl.Misc.No.7661/2021 DD 26.08.2021, the High Court of Allahabad considered similar set of facts and held that in socio economic offences proceeds of crime are larger and further, offenders are economically sound, therefore, in releasing them on bail/anticipatory bail probability of abscondance not within country but beyond country is more probable. The Court held that keeping in view the principle settled by the Hon'ble Apex Court there are no merit in the application filed under Section 438 of Cr.P.C. 22. In the light of various decisions rendered by the Hon'b....
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....ioner cannot be accepted as the respondent is discharging the official duty on the basis of credible information received by him. The same cannot be questioned at this stage. If there is serious lapses on the part of Investigating Officer in carrying on such investigation, the petitioner is not remedy less to seek redressal of the same. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the grievance highlighted by the learned counsel for the petitioner in the petition as well as during addressing the arguments, has no basis at this stage. 25. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner is the income tax assessee having bank statement and other documents available with him or that all the documents are available in public domain cannot be a reason to seek anticipatory bail when it is the contention of prosecution that questioning the petitioners is very much necessary to get proper answers which matches with the documents that are available. The contention of the learned counsel that since the petitioner is already questioned and some of the premises are already searched, the petitioner is not required for further questioning also cannot be accepted. It is....
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....with to thwart the intended investigation. 28. It is not the stage to form an opinion and to belittle the reliability/authenticity or otherwise of the information said to have been received by the respondent, which would amount to scuttling the proceedings at the initial stage. Even though this Court is armed with the power to grant pre-arrest bail, the same cannot be used to usurp the powers vested with the respondent, which is not in the interest of the society as a whole. Investigating the offence suspected of in the present case after the petitioner is armed with anticipatory bail may only be a formality without any result. The authority vested with the respondent under CGST Act and the Rules is to be respected, unless there is a reason to believe that such authority is being misused by the respondent or when apparently there are no reason to deny the claim of the petitioner. 29. The allegation made against the petitioner is that he is supplying the goods without issuance of invoice or bill, without supply of goods, availing input tax credit either using the invoices or bills or fraudulently availing such input tax credit without any invoice or bill and that he is collecting ....