Prima Facie No Notice For Recovery Has Been Issued Against Applicant: Allahabad HC Grants Bail Under CGST Act
The Allahabad High Court allowed a Bail Application to a petitioner indicted under the Central Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017 (CGST Act).
Justice Sanjay Kumar Pachori noted that prima facie no notice of recover has been issued against the applicant and he has been illeglly arrested.
In this context, the Bench further observed -
"...it prima facie appears that; (a) The applicant has been arrested without assigning any reason to believe nor any satisfaction to justified his arrest as provided in the Act; (b) Offences as alleged are punishable up-to 5 years imprisonment; (c) No notice for recovery of G.S.T. has been issued against the applicant and he is illegally arrested; (d) Till date penalty or taxes has not been ascertained as per Act; (e) Offences are compoundable in nature and triable by Magistrate..."
Senior Advocate Anup Trivedi appeared for the Applicant and Advocate Dhananjay Awasthi appeared for the Respondent.
The Petitioner was charged under Section 132(1)(I) of the CGST Act. The Petitioner contended that he was falsely implicated and was arrested without providing any justified reason for his arrest as no notice for recovery of GST was issued to him. Therefore, his arrest was illegal.
The Court after perusing the material on record held “It is a settled law that while granting bail, the court has to keep in mind the nature of accusation, the nature of the evidence in support thereof, the severity of the punishment which conviction will entail, the character of the accused, the circumstances which are peculiar to the accused, his role and involvement in the offence, his involvement in other cases and reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being tampered with”.
Accordingly, the Court granted bail to the applicant but subject to the conditions specified by the Court.
Cause Title: Ravinder Nath Sharma@ Ravubder Sharma v. Union of India