2026 (8) TMI 577

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....sider that, under Section 17 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (in short "IGST Act, 2017), in respect of inter-State supply of goods, the intermediary State, that is, the State of West Bengal did not have any authority to detain and seize the goods under Section 129 of the CGST Act. 5. The learned Single Judge erroneously directed the CGST authorities to auction the goods that were seized and committed further illegality by directing the appellant, who claims to be the owner of the goods, to participate in such auction. 6. The CGST authorities for the first time came up with the documents, which indicated that the appellant had admitted before the Anti-Evasion Section of the authority during an investigation that, he ....

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....chance to bring those documents on record. There is no reason to doubt the same at this stage. 12. Secondly, with regard to Mr. Bose's contention that Ratul has filed an affidavit-in-reply, inter alia, stating that he was coerced into submitting the said letter to the authority, the same is a matter of evidence, which we are not inclined to go into. The records indicate that Ratul Talukdar had written to the authority and the letter is set out below:- "To, The Superintendent, Hqrs. Anti-Evasion, CGST Guwahati Commissionerate Subject: Fraudulent use of my credentials to obtain GSTIN-18AWEPT2079E1ZB-reg Sir, As it has come to my knowledge that a firm named M/s Talukdar Enterprises has b....

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....t the owner and the owner could not be traced. 14. Under such circumstances, we are not inclined to hold that the appellant is entitled to release of goods under Section 129(1)(a) of the CGST Act. As the goods are perishable in nature, a non-owner is entitled to seek release in terms of Section 129(1)(b) of the CGST Act. 15. We hold that the learned Judge erred in directing the authority to auction the goods and in further directing the appellant to participate in such auction process. 16. We also do not find that any finding with regard to the jurisdiction of the CGST authority to detain and seize the goods, has been returned by the learned single Judge. No appeal was filed by the appellant within the prescribed time limit, challe....