All persons arrested for economic offences and facing criminal proceedings under CGST Act should be treated at par

Hearing a Petition for bail, filed by a person who faced criminal proceedings and was arrested for allegedly contravening the provisions of the CGST Act 2017, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, allowed the petition, on the grounds that the Petitioner’s co-accused had also been released on bail.

A Single Judge bench of Justice Avneesh Jhinghan, accepted the Petitioner’s plea to be treated at par with the co-accused who was already granted bail, while also noting that conclusion of the Petitioner’s trial could take some time.

The Petitioner was represented by Mr Tushar Gautam, Advocate, whereas the Respondent was represented by Mr Sourabh Goel, Advocate.

The Anti-Evasion Wing of the GST Department had been probing certain non-existent, bogus and non-operational firms which were accumulating very high amount of fraudulent Input Tax Credit on the basis of bogus purchase invoices from nonexistent and fraudulent firms and further showing sale invoices at lower tax rate and claiming inverted tax refund, by filing and unloading fake documents including CA certificates. It was further found that the same modus operandi was used by cartel of economic offenders in filing bogus applications for refund consisting of various fake firms.

The Petitioner was one amongst several other persons who had been arrested in this regard and were facing criminal proceedings under the CGST Act.

The Petitioner filed the present application for bail, claiming that a co-accused person had already been released on bail, and that the Petitioner be treated at par with the co-accused.

On hearing the contentions of the parties, the Bench observed that keeping in view the custody period and also that the conclusion of the trial could take time, the Petitioner was granted bail, conditional upon the Petitioner furnishing bail bonds to the satisfaction of the Magistrate concerned.

With these observations, the Petition came to be allowed.

Cause Title: Sanjeev Sharma vs. Commissioner CGST [CRM-M-19083-2023 / 2023-Enterslice-20-HC-Punj-GST]

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