The main legal point established in the judgment is that the provisional attachment of a bank account under the MGST Act must be justified by pending proceedings under the relevant sections, and must be carried out by the competent authority as per the Act.

JUDGMENT

Ujjal Bhuyan, J. - Heard Mr. Pande, learned counsel for the petitioner and Ms. Jyoti Chavan, learned AGP for the respondents/State.

2. By fling this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner seeks quashing of provisional attachment order dated 19.06.2020 issued by respondent no.3 attaching the bank account of the petitioner maintained with the ICICI Bank, Andheri West Branch, Mumbai.

3. Case of the petitioner is that he is a businessman having his office at Dev Plaza, 2nd floor, S.V. Road, Opp. Fire Brigade, Andheri (West), Mumbai- 400 058. There are various other offices carrying on their business from the said address.

4. Petitioner has rented out commercial premises on leave and license basis receiving license fees from the licensees. Since petitioner is required to pay goods and services taxes (GST) on such license fee, he is duly registered with the GST department and submitting GST returns regularly.

5. On 17.01.2020, office of respondent no.2 carried out search operations in the office address of the petitioner in respect of other companies having their offices there, namely, Satra Retail Private Limited, Bleu Noir Infrastructes Private Limited, Prarush Impex and Minaxi Satra Ventures whereafter, summons under section 70 of the Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (briefly 'the MGST Act' hereinafter) were issued. However, no such search was undertaken against the petitioner and petitioner has not received any summons from the office of respondent no.2.

6. It is stated that petitioner had submitted GST returns till February, 2020 and had accordingly paid GST. However because of Covid-19 pandemic, petitioner had not received any license fee in respect of the rented premises from March, 2020 and accordingly no GST was deposited from March, 2020. Resultantly, petitioner submitted GST return for June, 2020 declaring NIL tax. As it is, respondents had extended the last date for fling of GST return till 31.07.2020.

7. On or about the 3rd week of June, 2020, petitioner came to know that his bank account bearing No.001101218141 maintained with the ICICI Bank, Andheri West Branch, Mumbai, was provisionally attached by respondent no.3. As a result, petitioner was prevented from operating the said bank account.

8. Since petitioner was not served with a copy of the provisional attachment order, a copy of the same was sought for and obtained by him from the ICICI Bank, which shows that petitioner's bank account was provisionally attached under section 83 of the MGST Act.

9. Though the provisional attachment order mentioned that proceedings have been launched against the petitioner under section 67 of the MGST Act, it is contended that no notice of proceedings under section 67 of the MGST Act has been served upon the petitioner; besides, no such proceedings were pending.

10. Aggrieved by such provisional attachment order of bank account, petitioner submitted detailed representation before respondent no.3 on 01.07.2020, requesting the said authority to withdraw the provisional attachment of bank account forthwith. However, there was no response to the said representation.

11. Aggrieved, present writ petition has been filed seeking the reliefs as indicated above.

12. A common reply affidavit have been filed by respondent nos.1, 2 and 3 through respondent no.3. At the outset, it is stated that petitioner has alternative remedy as provided under rule 159 (5) of the Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 (briefly the 'MGST Rules' hereinafter) which the petitioner has availed. Since petitioner has availed the said alternative remedy, writ petition would not be maintainable.

12.1. It is stated that proceedings under section 67 of the MGST Act were initiated by virtue of issuance of statutory Form GST INS-01 dated 17.01.2020. As per assignment, Smt. Poonam M. Ombase, Assistant Commissioner of State Tax, Inv