A Single Bench of the Calcutta High Court quashed the criminal case against the appellant on pending civil proceedings by holding that there is an abuse of the process of court in a tax evasion case.
The allegation against the petitioner, Sushanta Karati is regarding concealing the sales figures of his business pertaining to the year from 2009-2010 to 2013-2014 and by doing the same evading tax upon sales of his product. A criminal case was initiated being Chatterjeehat Police Station The petitioner has challenged the proceedings thereunder. A proceeding under Section 76 of the West Bengal Sales Tax Act, 1992 has been started against the appellant and the same is pending.
Chatterjee, Counsel for the petitioner submitted that his client has been subjected to double jeopardy, to face enquiry as well as investigation on the self-same cause of action, which according to him is not tenable in the eye of the law. Therefore, the petitioner has come up by filing the revision case for an order of the Court quashing the entire criminal proceedings against the appellant.No sanction was issued by the Commissioner before the initiation of the criminal case against the petitioner.
Sudip Ghosh, Advocate for the State submitted that the petitioner has been a habitual evader of tax and has endeavored to take shelter behind the legal recourses taken in the Court as well as in the taxation Tribunal and also in the proceedings against him, on various false pretexts, though failed. According to the Counsel, this revision case by the petitioner is filed only with the mala fide intention to frustrate the statutory exercises against him as a law evader.
The Bench comprising Justice Rai Chattopadhyay observed that “The petitioner is now facing proceedings with civil consequences like imposition of penalty upon him. With the same cause of action, he has also been subjected to criminal proceedings as above. The criminal proceeding has been initiated without a ‘sanction’ order from the Commissioner, as envisaged in law to be a mandatory precondition for initiation thereof.”
“There should not be any hesitation to hold that in case the said proceeding is allowed to be continued against the petitioner, the same would amount to be an abuse of the process of court,” the Court said.
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