2022 (8) TMI 275
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....he case are that a firm under the name and style of M/s Aggarwal Cotton Industries, Adampur, District Hisar was registered under GST Act, 2017 on date 28.9.2017 having GST No. GSITIN 06BKYPC2378E1ZY and the abovesaid firm is a proprietorship firm and the proprietor has been shown as Sh. Vakil Chand, resident of Sirsa (petitioner in CRM-M-16234-2021) on GST Portal with the mobile number, Aadhar Card and bank details. During the course of verification of the said firm at the given address, no such firm was found existing and on enquiry it was found that the business place of the firm is New Kapas Mandi Adampur and the dealers found present at the spot of New Kapas Mandi Adampur stated that no such firm is working over there for the last two years and they do not know about the proprietor of the firm i.e. Vakil Chand. On enquiry from Market Committee, Adampur, the Secretary-cum-E.O. of Market Committee, replied in writing that M/s Aggarwal Cotton Industries, Adampur was not registered in the month of November, 2017 in their office. The tax payer Vakil Chand had shown a rent agreement with one Sh. Deepak Kumar s/o Sh. Roshan Lal, r/o New Kapas Mandi, Adampur during registration of the ....
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....take long and continued custodial incarceration of the petitioners is not likely to advance any interest of justice. It is pointed out that even if the element of tax evasion is taken into consideration, the maximum sentence prescribed under Section 132 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (as was applicable then) was upto 05 years with fine and that against the alleged commission of offence punishable under Section 132 of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017, the offence under the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ought not to have been attracted. 5. Learned State counsel points out that the petitioners had connived with each other and had shown transactions with a total turn over of Rs.191 crores approximately and had availed input tax credit of Rs.9.60 crores and thus caused loss to the State exchequer. It was, however, not disputed that the petitioners are in custody for more than 1½ years and that only 02 witnesses have been examined so far. The statement of the witnesses recorded under Section 161 CrPC and adverted to in the Court are not disputed. As per the said statement, the input tax credit which was wrongfully retained by the firm already stands paid b....
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.... 105 defines bail as:"to set at liberty a person arrested or imprisoned, on security being taken for his appearance on a day and at a place certain, which security is called bail, because the party arrested or imprisoned is delivered into the hands of those who bind themselves or become bail for his due appearance when required, in order that he may be safely protected from prison, to which they have, if they fear his escape, etc., the legal power to deliver him." BAIL IS THE RULE 11. The principle that bail is the rule and jail is the exception has been well recognised through the repetitive pronouncements of this Court. This again is on the touchstone of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This court in Nikesh Tarachand Shah v. Union of India, (2018) 11 SCC 1, held that: "19. In Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab [Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 565 : 1980 SCC (Cri) 465], the purpose of granting bail is set out with great felicity as follows: (SCC pp. 586-88, paras 27-30) "27. It is not necessary to refer to decisions which deal with the right to ordinary bail because that right does not furnish an exact parall....
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....ere in custody. As a presumably innocent person he is therefore entitled to freedom and every opportunity to look after his own case. A presumably innocent person must have his freedom to enable him to establish his innocence. 28. Coming nearer home, it was observed by Krishna Iyer, J., in Gudikanti Narasimhulu v. State [Gudikanti Narasimhulu v. State, (1978) 1 SCC 240 : 1978 SCC (Cri) 115] that: (SCC p. 242, para 1) '1. ... the issue [of bail] is one of liberty, justice, public safety and burden of the public treasury, all of which insist that a developed jurisprudence of bail is integral to a socially sensitised judicial process. ... After all, personal liberty of an accused or convict is fundamental, suffering lawful eclipse only in terms of "procedure established by law". The last four words of Article 21 are the life of that human right.' 29. In Gurcharan Singh v. State (UT of Delhi) [GurcharanSingh v. State (UT of Delhi), (1978) 1 SCC 118 : 1978 SCC (Cri) 41] it was observed by Goswami, J., who spoke for the Court, that: (SCC p. 129, para 29) '29. ... There cannot be an inexorable formula in the matter of granting bail. The facts and circum....
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....hardship. From time to time, necessity demands that some unconvicted persons should be held in custody pending trial to secure their attendance at the trial but in such cases, "necessity" is the operative test. In this country, it would be quite contrary to the concept of personal liberty enshrined in the Constitution that any person should be punished in respect of any matter, upon which, he has not been convicted or that in any circumstances, he should be deprived of his liberty upon only the belief that he will tamper with the witnesses if left at liberty, save in the most extraordinary circumstances. 23. Apart from the question of prevention being theobject of refusal of bail, one must not lose sight of the fact that any imprisonment before conviction has a substantial punitive content and it would be improper for any court to refuse bail as a mark of disapproval of former conduct whether the accused has been convicted for it or not or to refuse bail to an unconvicted person for the purpose of giving him a taste of imprisonment as a lesson." PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE 13. Innocence of a person accused of an offense is presumed through a legal fiction, p....
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....itories. A central part of the Canadian law of bail consists of the ladder principle and the authorized forms of release, which are found in s. 515(1) to (3) of the Criminal Code. Save for exceptions, an unconditional release on an undertaking is the default position when granting release. Alternative forms of release are to be imposed in accordance with the ladder principle, which must be adhered to strictly: release is favoured at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous grounds. If the Crown proposes an alternate form of release, it must show why this form is necessary for a more restrictive form of release to be imposed. Each rung of the ladder must be considered individually and must be rejected before moving to a more restrictive form of release. Where the parties disagree on the form of release, it is an error of law for a judge to order a more restrictive form without justifying the decision to reject the less onerous forms. A recognizance with sureties is one of the most onerous forms of release, and should not be imposed unless all the less onerous forms have been considered and rejected as inappropriate. It is not necessary to impose cash bail on accu....


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