The Orissa High Court has granted bail to a person alleged of economic offence causing loss of Rs.19 crores revenue to the Government Exchequer.
The petitioner happens to be the Director and Authorized Signatory of M/s. Shri Ganapati Ores & Ispat Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Kshipra Consumer Marketing Pvt. Ltd. which are trading Companies having G.S.T. registration. The opposite party on receipt of reliable information that the companies have issued invoices indicating the sales of goods or raw materials used by different manufacturing units of Steel and Aluminium which are located in different locations of Odisha as well as outside the State of Odisha, but without actual movement of goods.
Pursuant to such invoices, which appear to be stage managed invoices, input tax credit, have been claimed by different companies, to whom the aforesaid Firms stated to have supplied goods / raw materials for manufacturing purpose under the Goods and Service Tax Act.
On receipt of such information, search was conducted in different places and ultimately it was found that there was no movement of the goods pursuant to such invoices issued by the aforesaid companies, of which the petitioner is the Director, along with one Sanjeev Kumar Singh and others.
To hoodwink the Revenue Authority that there was no movement of goods pursuant to the invoices, they have also shown the movement of goods in different vehicles with the help of one of the co-accused and some of which are not at all transport vehicles and received payments through Bank from such companies and which was ultimately siphoned back to the source.
The single judge bench of Justice Satrughana Pujahari noted that the petitioner has been indicted in a heinous and serious offence, i.e., economic offence causing loss of Rs.19 crores revenue to the Government Exchequer, as revealed from the materials produced and also his such alleged overt act contributed to frustrate the avowed object of bringing reform tax law brought by the Union of India in the shape of G.S.T. and Rourkela is stated to be an epicentre of such fraudulent activities in India which has spread to other parts of the Country.
However, the court said that the petitioner is languishing in custody for more than two years and also the fact that due to spread of Pandemic COVID-19 hardly any chance of the trial being concluded in near future, this Court directs the Court in seisin over the matter to release the petitioner on interim bail for a period of 60 days
The court further imposed the condition that the petitioner shall surrender to the custody of the Court concerned on 61st day of his release from custody.
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