Case Law Details
Mohit Bathla Vs CGST Division Panipat (Panipat District Court)
This order shall dispose of an application for regular bail moved on behalf of the applicant-accused, named above.
2. Briefly, the case of the prosecution is that on 24.12.2020, a search operation at the premises of M/s S.B. Chemicals of applicant-accused Mohit Bathla was conducted by the team of Joint Commissioner, Anti Evasion, Panchkula, CGST Commissionerate under section 67(2) of Central Goods & Service Tax, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as ‘CGST Act’) on the basis of information received from Commissioner, CGST & CX, Kutch, Gandhi Dham, Gujarat and during search and seizure operation, the statements of Mohit Bathla and others were recorded under section 70 of the Act. During search, it was found that three other firms, namely, M/s Hind International, M/s Hans Petroleum Products and M/s Jey Oil & Bitumin Products India Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ‘HHJB Firms’) were operating from the same premises. Applicant-accused Mohit Bathla had made the statement that all financial transactions of the said four firms were being looked after by him. Said firms had their inward supplies from firms, namely, M/s Krishna Enterprises, M/s Vinayak Traders and M/s Om Enterprises (hereinafter referred to as ‘KVO Firms’). One Amit Kumar, made a statement that he is sole proprietor of KVO Firms and these are fake and bogus firms and are indulged in the business of issuance of fake invoices without actual supply of goods. He admitted that these firms never supplied any goods to the four firms, namely, M/s S.B. Chemicals etc. He also admitted that under the garb of trading of Bitumen, applicant-accused Mohit Bathla indulged in issuance of fake invoices alongwith the bilties to various traders whereas the firms M/s Saurabh Roadways, M/s Sethi Roadlines and M/s Balaji Bulk Carriers, whose bilties are shown to have been issued, were being managed/operated by applicant-accused Mohit Bathla. The bilty book of M/s Saurabh Roadways was seized/resumed and it was found that there was no inward and outward supply of goods and only bogus invoices have been circulated and cash has been routed through agent. The complainant team, on checking the GSTN portal, had found that KVO Firms had issued fake invoices for the taxable value of Rs.24,01,25,141/- involving tax amount of Rs.4,32,22,526/-. The team had further recorded the statement of Rajeev Kumar, supervisor of applicant-accused, who admitted that KVO Firms never supplied any goods to any of HHJB Firms and admitted that applicant-accused Mohit Bathla had purchased goods-less invoices issued by 11 other bogus/fake firms. In his statement, the applicant-accused had admitted that Amit Kumar was his commission agent and Rajeev Kumar was his supervisor in his firm M/s S.B. Chemicals. He admitted that he availed ITC credit on the invoices issued by several other firms named by him. Thus, the amount of ITC availed, as admitted by the accused, came to Rs.6.25 crores approximately. He also admitted that he had availed ITC credit amounting to Rs.13.31 crores approximately on the invoices issued by 11 firms. Applicant-accused Mohit Bathla was arrested for commission of offences under Section 132(1)(c) read with section 132(1)(b) of the Act on 25.12.2020 and his judicial remand was sought.
3. The applicant-accused has moved the instant application for regular bail with the averments that he has not committed any offence and has been falsely implicated in the case. It is averred on his behalf that during the conduct of search proceedings, the respondent brought their own witnesses in complete violation of provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure and no independent witness was joined during conducting search. The signatures of the applicant-accused were taken on dotted lines of blank papers and the respondent had taken away the entire records of the applicant-accused. He further averred that the respondent had wrongly clubbed the amount of ITC alleged to have wrongly taken by four different firms to exceed figure beyond Rs.500 lacs. It is further averred that in similar matter in case titled ‘Rohit Kumar Goyal Vs. Director General of GST Intelligence’ CRM-M-673-2021, Hon’ble High Court had granted bail to the accused as constitutional validity of sections 69 and 132 of the CGST Act are under challenge before the Hon’ble High Court. In several other matters of similar nature, the accused have been granted bail or their interim bail was extended due to the same reason. He relied upon several judgments of Hon’ble Apex Court and contended that the object of bail is neither punitive nor preventive and it is to secure the appearance of the accused at his trial and hence the bail should be granted to the accused. He further contended that the accused-applicant is in custody since 25.12.2020. The trial will take sufficiently long time and no useful purpose will be served by keeping him in further custody. With these averments, he prayed for concession of regular bail. He further contended that applicant is entitled for concession of bail on medical grounds also.
4. On notice, the respondent filed detailed reply to the instant application denying the allegations. It is averred on behalf of the respondent, that the applicant-accused himself was responsible for conducting of business of all the firms namely HHJB Firms and this fact was admitted by him in his own statement. The entire liability of payment of GST was upon him. It is further averred that the investigation is still pending and the record from CS Kutch, Gandhi Ram, Gujarat is yet to be collected and it is yet to be verified about the existence of the firms which had issued the fake invoices to the applicant-accused and as the complaint has not yet been filed, it is not in the interest of justice to release the applicant-accused on bail. He lastly prayed for dismissal of the application.
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