The Central government recently explained the concepts of inspection, search, seizure and arrest under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law.
A concept note released by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) recently said that the options of Inspection, Search, Seizure and Arrest can be exercised, only in exceptional circumstances and as a last resort, to protect the Government Revenue.
“Therefore, to ensure that these provisions are used properly, effectively and the rights of tax payers are also protected, it is stipulated that Inspection, Search or Seizure can only be carried out when an officer, of the rank of Joint Commissioner or above, has reasons to believe the existence of such exceptional circumstances. In such cases the Joint Commissioner may authorise, in writing, any other officer to cause inspection, search and seizure. However, in case of arrests the same can be carried out only where the person is accused of offences specified for this purpose and the tax amount involved is more than specified limit. Further, the arrests under GST Act can be made only under authorisation from the Commissioner,” it said.
Under the new law, a person can be arrested only if the criteria stipulated under the law for this purpose is satisfied i.e. if he has committed specified offences (not any offence) and the tax amount is exceeding rupees 200 lakhs. However, the monetary limit shall not be applicable if the offences are committed again even after being convicted earlier i.e. repeat offender of the specified offences can be arrested irrespective of the tax amount involved in the case.
The provisions for arrests under GST Law have sufficient inbuilt safeguards to ensure that these are used only under authorisation from the Commissioner. Besides this, the GST Law also stipulates that arrests can be made only in those cases where the person is involved in offences specified for the purposes of arrest and the tax amount involved in such offence is more than the specified limit.
Read the full text of the Concept Note below.
