Hearing the bail application of a businessman who was arrested by the directorate general of GST Intelligence (DGGI) for GST evasion of Rs. 1,033 crore, the high court observed that there cannot be any straight jacket formula to decide the bail application in favour of accused merely because the alleged offence was triable by the court of first class judicial magistrate and punishable with an imprisonment of five years.
The court while rejecting the bail application stated, “The common man of this country is paying all kinds of taxes including CGST and SGST but the person like the petitioner is actually causing obstruction in the development of nation and by creating fake firms he had caused a loss of nearly Rs. 1,033 crore to the public exchequer.” “Such act of economic offence committed by such accused person is required to be dealt with a different approach in the matter of bail,” the court observed.
A single bench comprising Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand rejected the bail application of the accused, Ashutosh Garg, who was arrested by DGGI on November 11, 2023. “A big chunk of money earmarked for developmental project has been pocketed by “while-collar criminals” by doing such illegal activities of causing huge loss to our country in crores of rupees,” Justice Dhand said while rejecting the bail plea.
Source: The Times of India
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