The Patiala House Court accepted the bail plea of a person accused of wrongfully availing Input Tax Credit (ITC).
The applicant, Kabir Kumar alleged to have created around 31 firms using different person identities for the sole purpose of issuing fake bills without supplying goods and thereby passing on fraudulent input tax credit.
The modus operandi was that bills were issued to various firms without supply of goods on commission basis. He admitted that no movement of actual goods has been done and the invoices generated by them.
The accused also managed the payment of these 31 fake firms which was received from various recipients in the individual accounts of these fake firms which he transferred through RTGS to multiple firms who intum purchase gift cards from banks.
The gift cards were sold to local markets in cash through dealers after deducting commission of around 3-4% cash was sent to firms. Thereafter, he used to generate Inward and Outward E-way bills in respect of the said firms but there was no movement of vehicles and all Eway bills were forged.
The accused filed GSTR-1 & GSTR-3B in respect of the said firms and operated all bank accounts of 31 firms and earned 2 to 3% commission on issuing fake bills without supply of goods. It is submitted that the accused accepted a total fraudulent ITC of Rs. 392.37 Crores have been passed on by him to various firms allocated in India.
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Panjkaj Sharma noted that the investigating agency is having the possession of all the documentary evidence collected so for and all other relevant material which is in the form of stamps, cheque books, debit cards, digital signatures and other material like invoices which they can scrutinize and for such scrutiny which is time consuming the further detention without any justification seems to be unreasonable.
Accordingly in the considered view of this Court, the accused is entitled for bail subject to furnishing PB/SB in the sum of Rs. 5 lakhs with one surety in the like amount subject to various conditions.
Firstly, the accused shall join the investigation as and when directed by the investigating agency
Secondly, the accused shall not tamper with the evidence or influence the witnesses which will be examined by the department during investigation.
Thirdly, accused shall not leave the country without the permission of the permission of the Court
Fourthly, the accused shall not indulge in similar offence in future.
Lastly, accused shall appear before the Court on each and every date of hearing.
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