The High Court of Allahabad held that there is also no bar in the Uttar Pradesh Act on lodging the First Information Report (FIR) under the Code for offences punishable under the Penal Code i.e Indian Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code even though, for the same act or conduct, the prosecution can be launched under the U.P. Act.
The FIR was lodged by Commercial Tax Officer, alleging that on the scanning of information available at GST Portal and information received from the mobile squad of Commercial Tax Department regarding the vehicles seized with goods without proper documents, exercising power under Section 67 of the GST Act, the Joint Commissioner (Investigation), by order constituted and authorized a team of officers to carry out search and seizure operations at declared places of business. It is alleged that when the team visited the declared place, it found that it was not functioning as a registered office of any firm; no business activity could be noticed; no goods were found, and the person presents there, informed that the place was not being used for any business but only for preparing documents.
The petitioners had set up bogus firms for the purpose of evading tax and had been preparing false documents and invoices for that.
The division bench consisting of Justice Manoj Misra, and Justice Deepak Verma, while relying on the decision of the Apex Court held that the impugned first information report discloses commission of the cognizable offences, the prayer to quash the first information report cannot be accepted as investigation should not be shut out at the threshold if the allegations have some substance.
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