Vijay Shankar Prasad Vs. The State of Bihar (Patna High Court)
Hon’ble HC held that prosecution in criminal law and proceedings arising under the Bihar Value Added Tax Act, 2005 are undoubtedly independent proceedings and, therefore, there is no impediment in law for the criminal proceedings to proceed even during the pendency of the proceedings under the Bihar Value Added Tax Act, 2005. In the present case, while the petitioner is being proceeded under the Bihar Value Added Tax Act, 2005, for concealing or failing to disclose full and correct particular of sale or purchase etc. as well as for evasion of tax, the present prosecution has been launched under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for committing forgery and cheating by furnishing invalid and false TIN number of the purchaser on the bill. Thus, the offence under the provisions of the Bihar Value Added Tax Act were, it seems, consequent to the offences under the Indian Penal Code, which ostensibly were committed first. Hence, in the present case, the same set of facts definitely constitute offence under two different law i.e. one under the Indian Penal Code and other under the Bihar Value Added Tax Act, 2005, thus neither Article 20(2) of the Constitution of India has any relevance to the present case nor the present criminal prosecution can be said to be barred or a case of double jeopardy, much less liable to be quashed, therefore, there is no merit in the contention raised by the petitioner herein.
