TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (8) TMI 239
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....the sake of brevity, the facts are taken from CRM-M-8675-2025. 2. The present petition is preferred under Section 483 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 seeking regular bail in the case stemming from complaint No. DGGI/INT/INTL/939/2024-GrE-O/O ADG-DGGI-ZULUDHIANA (Annexure P-3) filed under Sections 132(1)(b) of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017 (hereinafter 'CGST Act') and punishable under Section 132(1)(b) and 132(1)(c) of the same. 3. In pursuance of order dated 01.05.2025, the following have supplied their respective affidavits: 1) Jitendra Jorwal, IAS, Taxation Commissioner, Department of Taxation, Punjab. 2) Anju, Deputy Director, DGGI, Chandigarh Zonal Unit. 3) Devika Rani, Deputy Director, DGGI, Gurugram Zonal Unit. The same as taken on record. FACTUAL BACKGROUND 4. Briefly, the facts, as alleged, are that an information was received from the Financial Investigation Unit in form of a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) indicating substantial cash withdrawals to the tune of Rs. 4,938.63 crore, from two branches of the IFSC Bank-Ambala Cantt and Panchkula. It was further revealed that petitioner-Amit Kumar Goyal wit....
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....he complaint for the last 06 months and is yet to be accomplished. Lastly, the investigation already stands completed qua petitioners-Manish Kumar as well as Amit Kumar Goyal, as such no useful purpose would be served by detaining them further. 6. Learned counsel for the respondent-DGGI submits that the petitioners are involved in serious financial misconduct as they have created about 27 fake firms and defrauded the State exchequer of Rs. 107 crore, claimed by them as input tax credit by issuing forged and fabricated GST bills. During the course of search operations, 54 cheque books, 46 ATM cards, 5 Voter IDs, 11 PAN cards, 7 stamps and multiple mobile phones, hard disks, laptops and loose papers were recovered. Further, it was discovered that most of these bogus firms have lost their GST registration on account of being non-existent/ non-operational. Thus, it is clear that they were specifically created by the petitioners with the intention to defraud the State exchequer. Moreover, the petitioner-Amit Kumar Goyal, in his voluntary statement has admitted that no goods were actually received by these firms and that he was merely using them to raise bills. He also stated that his....
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.... 6. Taxation Commissioner, Punjab 7. Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Haryana 8. Excise and Taxation Commissioner, U.T. Chandigarh are directed to furnish the following information by means of an affidavit, by the next date of hearing: (i) Number of complaints under Section 132 of the Act filed since 2017. (ii) Number of trials concluded in the said complaints as well as the number of convictions made therein. (iii) Number of show cause notices under Sections 73/74 of the Act issued in cases pertaining to an amount over Rs. 5 crores. (iv) Number of show cause notices dropped without adjudicating upon the matter and initiating criminal proceedings under Section 132 of the Act. (v) Number of arrests made after issuance of notice under Sections 73/74 of the Act." 9. Before answering the question framed for adjudication, it would be apposite to study the data provided in pursuance of abovementioned order, by means of affidavits filed by: 1. Jitendra Jorwal, IAS, Taxation Commissioner, Department of Taxation, Punjab. 2. Vinay Partap Singh, IAS, Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Haryana. 3. Har....
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....ommissioner may authorise arrest when he is able to ascertain and record reasons to believe. As indicated above, the reasons to believe must be explicit and refer to the material and evidence underlying such opinion. There has to be a degree of certainty to establish that the offence is committed and that such offence is non-bailable. The principle of benefit of doubt would equally be applicable and should not be ignored either by the Commissioner or by the Magistrate when the accused is produced before the Magistrate." (emphasis added) 11. In this context, the affidavits submitted by the concerned officers are perused. The GST regime was implemented on 01.07.2017 and interestingly, since its commencement, only a solitary conviction has been made in the States of Punjab, Haryana and Union Territory of Chandigarh put together. Further, the empirical data suggests that notices under Sections 73 and 74 of the CGST Act are served in a very few cases. It can be safely inferred that where notice is served, arrests are not being made however, where arrests are in fact made, no prior notice is served. Further, the respondent seems to be habitual of initiating proceedings but not seeing ....
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....s well as the reputation of the accused. 14. Time and again, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has reiterated that the right to speedy trial as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India, is a fundamental concept in criminal jurisprudence and a sine qua non for proper administration of justice. It must be noted that 'trial' herein encompasses investigation, inquiry, trial, appeal, revision and retrial etc. i.e. everything commencing with the accusation to the final verdict of the last Court. Further still, it is trite law that no person can be deprived of his liberty except through a procedure that is reasonable, fair and just as such deprivation would amount to a direct violation of the fundamental right as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Be that as it may, curtailment of personal liberty to some extent, during the judicial process, cannot be avoided. However, if the period of deprivation pending trial becomes excessively long, the fairness as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India would come into play. 15. Adverting to the factual matrix of the present case, the petitioners have been in custody for 9 months 18 days while no subs....
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....nd has been taken by the learned counsel for the respondent that the petitioners ought not to be granted the concession of regular bail as investigation qua another co-accused is yet to be concluded. Be that as it may, the final report qua the petitioners has already been presented after subjecting them to prolonged interrogation. Nowhere during the thorough investigation process did the respondent even remotely hint at any non-cooperation on part of the petitioners. Further, it remains unclear as to why arrest process has not been initiated against the co-accused qua whom investigation is pending. If the same is for want of sufficient material to satisfy the standards for grant of authorisation under Section 69 CGST Act, the respondent must explain the delay in investigation as well efficacy thereof. Additionally, while the possibility of evidence tampering has been flagged, the entire case is based on documentary and electronic evidence, which are already available with the investigating agency, and all of the prosecution witnesses are officials of the respondent. As such, there is no scope of tampering with the evidence or influencing the witnesses. In that vein, this Court f....
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....not be denied merely in view of severity of the offence. The Courts ought to be conscious of the right to speedy trial bestowed on the accused by virtue of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Speaking through Justice H.L. Dattu opined as follows: "43. When the undertrial prisoners are detained in jail custody to an indefinite period, Article 21 of the Constitution is violated. Every person, detained or arrested, is entitled to speedy trial, the question is: whether the same is possible in the present case. There are seventeen accused persons. Statement of the witnesses runs to several hundred pages and the documents on which reliance is placed by the prosecution, is voluminous. The trial may take considerable time and it looks to us that the appellants, who are in jail, have to remain in jail longer than the period of detention, had they been convicted. It is not in the interest of justice that accused should be in jail for an indefinite period. No doubt, the offence alleged against the appellants is a serious one in terms of alleged huge loss to the State exchequer, that, by itself, should not deter us from enlarging the appellants on bail when there is no serious co....
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....o consideration. 40. The grant or refusal to grant bail lies within the discretion of the Court. The grant or denial is regulated, to a large extent, by the facts and circumstances of each particular case. But at the same time, right to bail is not to be denied merely because of the sentiments of the community against the accused. The primary purposes of bail in a criminal case are to relieve the accused of imprisonment, to relieve the State of the burden of keeping him, pending the trial, and at the same time, to keep the accused constructively in the custody of the Court, whether before or after conviction, to assure that he will submit to the jurisdiction of the Court and be in attendance thereon whenever his presence is required. 41. This Court in Gurcharan Singh and Ors. v. State, AIR 1978 Supreme Court 179 observed that two paramount considerations, while considering petition for grant of bail in nonbailable offence, apart from the seriousness of the offence, are the likelihood of the accused fleeing from justice and his tampering with the prosecution witnesses. Both of them relate to ensure of the fair trial of the case. Though, this aspect is dealt by the ....
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....y and electronic. The ocular evidence will be through official witnesses, due to which there can be no apprehension of tampering, intimidating or influencing. Therefore, keeping all these aspects in perspective, in the facts and circumstances of the present case, we find it proper to grant the prayer made by the petitioner. 7. Hence, it is directed that the petitioner be released on bail subject to the conditions to be imposed by the trial Court, which among others, shall also include the condition to direct the petitioner to deposit his passport. Further, such other conditions shall also be imposed by the trial Court to secure the presence of the petitioner to diligently participate in the trial. It is further directed that the petitioner be produced before the trial Court forthwith, to ensure compliance of this order." (emphasis added) CONCLUSION 20. In view of the discussion above, this Court has no hesitation in holding that an accused in a complaint under Section 132 of the CGT Act cannot be denied the concession of bail, solely on the ground that investigation remains pending qua a co-accused. Furthermore, learned counsel for the respondent could not c....