Gujarat High Court has directed that strict action should be taken against Goods & Services (GST) officers who stay at assessee’s premises during a search without authority of law. The Court was hearing a petition in which complainant had said that officials had stayed at his premise while conducting searches. According to the Court, it was shocking to see that in a premises where there were three ladies, namely, the petitioner’s mother, wife and young daughter, male officers together with a CRPF officer have stayed from October 12-18, despite the fact that goods and articles had been seized on October 11, 2019.
The Court further observed that the entire exercise carried out by the concerned officers from October 12 to 18 was without any authority of law and in flagrant disregard of the provisions of the Act and the rules and in total abuse of the powers vested in them under the Act. It was also very critical of the inquiry reports submitted by Gujarat’s Chief Commissioner of State Tax. The rst report was submitted on October 20, and after Court’s instruction, a second report was submitted last week.
According to the Bench, upon perusal of the report, it emerges that it is no better than the earlier report (October 20th) submitted by the Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, and does not meet with the directions issued by this court in letter and spirit. “It appears that the Chief Commissioner of GST has taken a very lenient view in the matter and instead of examining the action of the concerned officers in the context of the relevant provisions of the Goods & Services Tax Act, has tried to justify the action of the concerned officers, which is required to be deprecated in the strictest terms,” it said.