Case Law Details
Pawan Goel & Anr Vs Directorate General of GST Intelligence Gurugram (Delhi High Court)
Conclusion: Anticipatory bail was granted to the Director of the Company of wrongfully availing Input Tax Credit worth Rs. 22.42 Crores on the condition that applicants should make themselves available for interrogation by the proper officer as and when required; the applicants should not directly or indirectly, make any inducement, threat or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade from disclosing such facts to the Court or to any officer; the applicants should not leave India without the previous permission of the Court and if they had passport, the same should be deposited by them before the proper officer concerned; in case assessees failed to appear on any date fixed by the Proper Officer under the CGST Act, for any reason whatsoever, this anticipatory bail application should stand automatically rejected and the protection given to the applicants would cease to have any effect.
Held: Assessees contended that the investigation against the company M/s KMG Pvt. Ltd. in which the applicants were directors by GST department started in June 2018 and since then the investigation was still continuing. The investigation pertained to availment of wrongful ITC to the tune of Rs. 22.42 Crores on the strength of certain invoices received from companies namely G International, M/s S Overseas, M/s D Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. which were controlled by brothers Sanjay Dhingra and Gulshan Dhingra. It was alleged against M/s KMG Ltd. that the company did not receive goods and only received invoices against which ITC was wrongly availed and the said invoices were not genuine. Assessee’s case was that they were not the creators of the said alleged documents but were bonafide recipients/purchaser of the said goods as all the payments against the said purchases were made through bank transfers which were duly reflected in the books of accounts. It was further submitted that there was sufficient evidence like Dharamkata slips, stocks in hand of over 7 crores on the business premises of assessee which prima facie established that during the search of GST department on 28.06.2018 no discrepancy in the stock was found by the officers of GST. It was held that the investigation related to the period of 2018 and prior to it, assessee had joined the investigation and their statements had already been recorded; the premises of assessees had also been searched; the employees had also joined the investigation; the main accused was arrested and granted bail; assessees had further joined the investigation at least 4 times after the filing of this bail application; the bank accounts of assessees had already been freezed; assessees had already deposited Rs. 2.5 crores with the department; there were no allegations of any threat to any of the witnesses or tampering with the evidence and the documents were in the custody of the department. Therefore, in these circumstances, the present anticipatory bail application was allowed and it was ordered that in the event of arrest, assessees be released on bail on their furnishing a personal bond in the sum of Rs. 5,00,000/- each with one surety each of the like amount subject to the satisfaction of the court concerned, subject to the following conditions: the applicants should make themselves available for interrogation by the proper officer as and when required; the applicants/petitioners should not directly or indirectly, make any inducement, threat or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade from disclosing such facts to the Court or to any officer; the applicants should not leave India without the previous permission of the Court and if they had passport, the same should be deposited by them before the proper officer concerned; in case assessees fail to appear on any date fixed by the Proper Officer under the C.G.S.T. Act, for any reason whatsoever, this anticipatory bail application should stand automatically rejected and the protection given to the applicants would cease to have any effect.
FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF DELHI HIGH COURT
1. The present application U/s 438 of Cr.P.C has been preferred by the petitioners challenging the order dated 04.02.2021 passed by the Ld. A.S.J., Patiala House Court, New Delhi by virtue of which anticipatory bail application of the petitioners had been rejected.
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