The Gujarat High Court has allowed bail to an accused of GST offenses considering the fact that the prosecution has not yet determined the amount off evaded GST and FIR was not lodged against the accused.
The applicant, Mr. Pankajbhai Chaturbhai Rajput is in jail since 10.3.2022. the applicant approached the Court contending that the investigation is over and the charge-sheet is filed and during the course of custody, no incriminating material came to be recovered and/or discovered from the present applicant and thereby, no further custodial interrogation is required.
Pronouncing an oral order, Justice Niral R. Mehta held that “Having heard the learned advocates for the parties and perusing the material placed on record and taking into consideration the facts of the case, nature of allegations, gravity of offences, role attributed to the accused, without discussing the evidence in detail, this Court is of the opinion that this is a fit case to exercise the discretion and enlarge the applicant on regular bail.”
Considering the facts and the nature of offences, the Court observed that all the offences are triable by Magistrate and the prosecution could not point out as to how much amount is misappropriated under the Input Tax Credit and that material part of investigation is not done, more particularly, when the GST Officer has not lodged any complaint or FIR against the applicant for any misappropriation of the Government funds or State Exchequer.
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