No anticipatory bail for economic offences involving loss to public exchequer

Hearing an application for anticipatory bail, the High Court of Delhi observed that the allegations against the Applicant were serious and involved the Applicant having duped large sums of money, forgery, and evasion of GST by creating false invoices issued by non-existent entities.

A Single Judge Bench of Justice Amit Bansal observed that economic offences were a serious offence since it involved loss of money for the public exchequer, and which pose a threat to the economy of the country. Hence, they had to be viewed seriously, the Bench observed.

The Applicant was represented by Mr. Siddharth Aggarwal, Senior Advocate whereas the Respondent-Department was represented by Mr. Ritesh Kumar Bahri, Assistant Public Prosecutor for State.

Briefly, the Applicant is a Chartered Accountant. In the relevant period, an FIR was registered on the complaint of a person, who claimed to have engaged the Applicant to look into the account books of his business. The Applicant was looking after day-to-day business of the complainant’s company for about 2 years. The FIR alleged that the Applicant induced the complainant to purchase goods through different firms, which the Applicant claimed were operated to persons known to him.

The complainant stated to have purchased goods through e-way bills from the suppliers indicated by the Applicant and made regular payments to these firms, and that the Applicant made the complainant deposit the payments in different accounts held in different names, and that the Applicant was adjusting the payments against the said firms on his own.

The complainant stated to later have realized that the firms in question were bogus and non-existent. He alleged that the Applicant duped him of about Rs 2.81 Crores by creating fake, forged and fabricated firms and received payments including GST in different accounts against the purchased goods from the complainant, but have not deposited GST with the Department.

Subsequently, the complainant was arrested by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence on grounds that the that various companies owned by him were involved in GST evasion by way of availing and passing fake Input Tax Credit (ITC) claims. The Complainant was later released on bail, after having deposited about Rs 1 Crore as tax.

In the same period, it also came to light that a sum of about Rs 10 Lakhs was deposited into the Applicant’s account, from the account of the complainant.

Therefore, apprehending arrest, the Application filed the present application seeking anticipatory bail as per Section 4398 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973.

On hearing the contentions of both sides, the Bench observed that the Applicant had abused the process of the Court, as the Applicant had withdrawn his anticipatory bail application with liberty to approach the Trial Court, but instead of filing a fresh application for anticipatory bail before the Sessions Court, instead filed an application for -cum-bail before the Sessions Court. Moreover, due to the non-appearance of the Application on the date of hearing the application, the same was dismissed. It was then that the present application was filed before this Court.

The Bench noted that once the Applicant had withdrawn his application for anticipatory bail, there was no occasion for the Applicant to file a fresh bail application in a month’s time.

The Bench further noted that the present case was not just relating to the applicant having duped the complainant of a huge sum of money, it also involved allegations of issuing fake invoices and e-way bills for the purposes of GST evasion, which is an economic offence involving loss to the public exchequer.

The Bench observed that such offences need to be viewed seriously as the same pose a threat to the economy of the country. Further, the present case involves offence under Section 467 of the IPC read with Section 471 of the IPC, for which the maximum punishment is imprisonment for life.

In the present case, for the aforesaid reasons, the custodial interrogation of the applicant is required. Besides, the allegations levelled against him are serious, being in the nature of forgery and GST evasion by creating false invoices issued by non-existent entities. Hence the Bench observed that no case for anticipatory bail was made out, the Bench concluded.

With these observations, the Bench dismissed the Applicant’s application for anticipatory bail.

Cause Title: Aman Gupta vs State [Bail Appl No.3408/2022 / 2023-Enterslice-19-HC-Del-GST]

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