GST OFFICIALS CANNOT GET INTO PHYSICAL INTIMIDATION DURING SEARCH

8^TH NOVEMBER

The Telangana High Court, in a judgment, ordered that GST officials cannot use physical violence during a search, investigation, or interrogation against persons they suspect of being guilty of tax evasion.

The Division Bench comprising of Justices M.S. Ramachandra Rao and T. Amarnath Goud permitted this order while deciding a writ petition filed by the owner of a company and his relative claiming that the officials of the GST Intelligence Department while searching assaulted them physically. The question which needs focus by the Court is whether officials belonging to the G.S.T. Intelligence Department of the Union of India can indulge in physical violence while conducting an interrogation of the petitioners and their staffs in connection with proceedings initiated against the petitioners by the defendants under the C.G.S.T. Act, 2017 and I.G.S.T. Act, 2017.

After considering all the aspects, the court permitted the Petition with the direction that “the defendants shall abide by the provisions of the CGST Act, 2017 in conducting search, investigation or inquiry concerning the alleged tax evasion by the petitioners.”

Author: Shweta Singh