Income Tax Dept warns public against cash dealings of Rs 2 lakh or more saying that the receiver of the amount will have to cough up an equal amount as penalty.

Supreme Court allows Arrest of GST Evaders without Anticipatory Bail

A vacation bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Aniruddha Bose has permitted the GST Officers to the tax evaders without anticipatory bail. According to the order, such evaders can be arrested even without FIR.

The bench also issued notice to the Centre and sought its reply on a batch of pleas challenging the provision of arrest under the Central Goods and Services Tax or CGST Act.

Challenging the Bombay HC’s orders, solicitor general Tushar Mehta said Parliament had segregated CGST Act from CrPC and provided a separate procedure for dealing with offenders. Mehta said the HC’s orders had brought “functions of the directorate general of GST intelligence to a grinding halt”.

The bench said that different high courts had taken different views in granting anticipatory bail to individuals accused of GST evasion and therefore, it needs to decide the question of law on the power of arrest.

The bench also asked all the high courts to keep in mind, while dealing with grant of anticipatory bail in GST evasion cases, its earlier order by which it had upheld the Telangana High Court verdict which had said that individuals can’t be given protection from arrest in such cases.

The bench listed the batch of petitions before a three-judge bench to decide the question of law on the power of arrest.

The order said that “As different high courts of the country have taken divergent views in the matter, we are of the view that the position in law should be clarified by this court. Hence the notice.”

“As the accused-respondents have been granted the privilege of pre-arrest bail by high courts by the impugned orders, at this stage, we are not inclined to interfere with the same. However, we make it clear that the high courts, while entertaining such requests in future, will keep in mind that the Supreme Court by order dated May 27 had dismissed the special leave petition filed against the judgment and order of the Telangana high court in a similar matter, wherein the high court of Telangana had taken a view contrary to what has been held by the high court (of Bombay) in the present case. Beyond the above, we do not consider it necessary to observe anything further,” it said.

Read more at: https://www.taxscan.in/supreme-court-allows-arrest-of-gst-evaders-without-anticipatory-bail/35937/

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