TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (6) TMI 110
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....ating from the record and relevant for the purpose of disposal of these petitions are that on receipt of an information in the office of the respondent-Directorate General, Goods & Service Tax Intelligence to the effect that a fictitious firm was formed under the name of M/s Dashmesh Traders, which was having GST No. 02BWAPS5236F1ZT, and this firm was engaged in availing and passing on fraudulent Input Tax Credit (for short 'ITC'), investigation was initiated by the respondent in order to ascertain the genuineness of the firm and its business. It was revealed that the firm was registered at a fictitious address by misusing false and fabricated documents. It was further revealed that one of the major beneficiaries in the transactions conducted through the firm was one M/s NK Gupta Builders Pvt. Ltd. Sahil Gupta, Director of the above company, was contacted and he recorded his statement that one Sandeep Garg was acting as a middleman for generating good less invoices and procuring them from M/s Dashmesh Traders. Aforesaid Sandeep Garg was proprietor of a firm named M/s Pashupati Enterprises, who, on being questioned, recorded a statement that good less invoices along with e-way bills....
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....ectronic in nature and there can be no apprehension of their tampering with evidence or intimidating or influencing the witnesses. They have been arrested only on the basis of suspicion. They do not have any criminal antecedents and have permanent places of businesses. There is no flight risk as they are ready to surrender their passport and to abide by other terms and conditions of bail to be imposed upon them. The respondent has not been able to show reasons to believe their involvement in commission of subject offence. It is, therefore, stressed that the petitions deserve to be allowed and the petitioners deserve to be released on bail. In support of his arguments, learned counsel for the petitioners has relied upon Ratnambar Kaushik vs. Union of India, 2022 INSC 1254, Ashutosh Garg vs. Union of India, 2024 (105) GST 572, Vipin Garg alias Bindu vs. State of Haryana, 2023(69) GSTL 3, Yash Goyal vs. Union of India, Criminal Appeal No. 2784 of 2024, decided on 28.06.2024, Deepak Sharma vs. State of Punjab, 2024 NCPHHC 104729, Parteek Das Gupta vs. State of Haryana, 2024 NCPHHC 46670, Amit Bansal vs. State of Haryana, 2024 NCPHHC 19173, Tejpal Singh vs. Director General of G.S.T. In....
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....y vs. Assistant Collector, Central Excise Collectorate, Chochin, 1997 (3) RCR CRL. 71, Sundeep Mahendra Kumar Sanghvi vs. Union Of India, SCA NO 8669 OF 2020, State of Gujarat vs. Mohanlal Jitamalji Porwal, (SC), 1987 (2) SCC 364, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy vs. Central Bureau of Investigation (SC), 2013 (3) RCR CRL. 108, Adri Dharan Das vs. State of West Bengal, (SC), 2005 (2) RCR CRL. 32, Union of India vs. Sapna Jain & Ors., SLP- (CRL)-4322/24/2019, Suresh Kumar P.P. vs. Deputy Director, Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), (Kerala) (DB), 2020 (41) GSTL 17, Suresh Kumar P.P. vs. Deputy Director, Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), SLP-(C)-13128-2020, Rakesh Arora vs. State of Punjab, CRM-M-1511-2022, decided on 28/01/2021 and Ashish Jain vs. Union of India (Bombay DB), 2019 (29) GSTL 6. 8. The rival submissions made by both the parties have been heard and carefully considered, besides going through the material placed on record. 9. Before proceeding to decide the prayer made by the petitioners for grant of bail, it would be apt to have a look at the relevant statutory provision contained in Section 132 of CGST Act, which read as under : 132. Punishment for ....
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....gard to some specific offences but that is another matter and does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect of other offences. Yet another important facet of our criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the general rule and putting a person in jail or in a prison or in a correction home (whichever expression one may wish to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result that more and more persons are being incarcerated and for longer periods. This does not do any good to our criminal jurisprudence or to our society. 5. The historical background of the provision for bail has been elaborately and lucidly explained in a recent decision delivered in Nikesh Tarachand Shah v. Union of India [(2018) 11 SCC 1] going back to the days of the Magna Carta. In that decision, reference was made to Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab [(1980) 2 SCC 565] in which it is observed that it was held way back in Nagendra v. King-Emperor [AIR 1924 Cal 476] that bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Reference was also made to Emperor v. Hutchinson [AIR 1931 All 356] wherein it was observed that gran....
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....pplication for bail in such matters, the Court has to be sensitive to the nature of the allegations made against the accused as well as the term of sentence i.e. prescribed for the offence that the accused is alleged to have committed. It was also observed that the reasonable apprehension of tampering with evidence or apprehension of threat to the complainant or the witnesses as well as character, behavior and standing of the accused and the circumstances that are peculiar to the accused and the larger interest of the public should also be taken into consideration. 14. Reference should also be made to Satender Kumar Antil vs. Central Bureau of Investigation and another, 2022 AIR (Supreme Court) 3386, wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court dealt extensively with the rights of the accused in economic offences by observing that the law laid down in P. Chidambaram's case (supra) still governed the field. The gravity of the offence, the object of the Special Act and the attending circumstances are a few of the factors to be taken note of along with the period of sentence. After all, an economic offence cannot be classified as such, as it may involve various activities and may differ from on....
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....by the accused was to the extent as provided under Section 132 (1) (i) and the punishment provided was imprisonment which might extend to 05 years and fine, the fact that the accused had already undergone incarceration for 04 months and completion of trial was likely to take time and further that the evidence to be tendered was of documentary nature, the Hon'ble Supreme Court had passed an order for release of the accused on bail. In Ashutosh Garg's case (supra), the High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan at Jaipur had dismissed the prayer made by the petitioner, who was accused of creating and operating 294 fake firms and evaded tax liability of Rs.1032 crores. The Hon'ble Supreme Court allowed the Special Leave Petition filed by the accused by taking into consideration the fact that he was in custody for a period of 09 months and that the offence carried maximum punishment for 05 years of imprisonment. It was observed that it was not appropriate to keep him in custody any further. 17. Further, in Vipin Garg alias Bindu's case (supra), there was allegation of misuse of ITC leading to loss of State exchequer. Chargesheet had been submitted. It was observed by Hon'ble Supreme Court....
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....still pending. In P. V. Ramana Reddy's case (supra), challenge was to summons issued under Section 70 of the GST Act and invocation of penal provisions. A Division Bench of Telangana High Court by observing that the GST regime was at its nascent stage since the law was yet to reach its second anniversary and that there were lot of technical glitches in furnishing of returns and making of ITC claims etc. had rejected the prayer and the order was upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. However, there was no prayer for grant of bail. In Sundeep Mahendra Kumar Sanghvi's case (supra) also, the challenge before the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad was to summons issued by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence under Section 108 of the Customs Act and a writ petition had been filed. In K. I. Pavunny's case (supra), the question before the Hon'ble Supreme Court was the admissibility in evidence of confessional statement made by an accused before the Customs Officer and the same has no bearing to the present case. 20. Further, in Mohanlal Jitamalji Porwal's case (supra), the question was qua additional evidence in a case registered under the provisions of Customs Act, which too has no appl....