Sunil Mahlawat Vs Central Goods And Services Tax (Punjab And Haryana High Court)
The petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court sought regular bail under Section 439 CrPC in a case registered under Section 132(1)(i) read with Sections 132(1)(b), (c), (e), and (f) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. The allegations against the petitioner, a registered Chartered Accountant, were that he had shared his One Time Password with a co-accused, enabling the generation of a Unique Document Identification Number. This UDIN was allegedly used to issue a CA certificate without the petitioner’s knowledge or authorization. It was claimed that the co-accused had also signed the document and that this was the first and only instance of such sharing by the petitioner.
The petitioner joined the investigation on 17.05.2022 pursuant to a summons but was arrested immediately and later sent to judicial custody. No police remand was sought. The petitioner’s counsel argued that investigation was complete, the challan had been filed, and no recovery remained pending. The petitioner had been in custody since his arrest, and all 21 prosecution witnesses listed were departmental officials. The maximum sentence for the alleged offences is five years, and the case would proceed as a magisterial trial, expected to take time. It was also submitted that the petitioner was not a beneficiary of the alleged wrongful Input Tax Credit received by certain companies and was not involved in any other case. Some bank accounts of the beneficiary companies had been frozen. Reliance was placed on a previous coordinate bench decision granting bail in a similar Input Tax Credit case.
