A party may challenge an order under Article 227 of the Constitution only when fundamental rights are breached or if there's a violation of natural justice; otherwise, adherence to alternative remedies is essential.

ORDER :

1. Heard learned advocate Mr.Pavan S. Godiawala for the petitioner, learned advocate Mr.Neel P. Lakhani for the respondent Nos.1 and 2 through video conference and learned Assistant Government Pleader Mr.Abhishek D.Jain for the respondent No.3.

2. By this petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has prayed for quashing and setting aside the Order-in-Original dated 24^th January, 2025 passed by the respondent No.2-Joint Commissioner, Central GST, Vadodara-I.

3. The brief facts of the case are as under :

3.1. The petitioner is a proprietor of M/s.KSEG India International and doing scrap business since two decades.

3.2. The petitioner was registered under the provisions of Central Sales Tax Act and the Value Added Tax Act and after coming into force of the GOODS AND SERVICES TAX ACT , the petitioner was registered under the provisions of the Central/State GOODS AND SERVICES TAX ACT , 2017 (for short ‘the GST Act’).

3.3. It is the case of the petitioner that the petitioner filed regular returns as required under the provisions of the GST Act.

3.4. An information was received by the letter dated 04.10.2018 from the Joint Commissioner (Preventive), CGST, Ahmedabad South by the respondents to the effect that M/s.S.K.Enterprise, Ahmedabad is indulging in generating invoices and passing on GST credit to other Companies without any actual movement of goods and has passed on the GST credit to the M/s.KSEG India International, Vadodara.

3.5. On the basis of such information, a search operation was conducted at the premises of the petitioner on 11.01.2019 and relevant documents i.e. purchase invoices of M/s.S.K.Enterprise, Ledger Account etc. were seized under the Panchnama. Thereafter, further investigation was carried out against M/s.H.M.Industries Private Limited, Kapadwanj on the same issue i.e. availment of credit on strength of input invoices without receipt of the goods from three bogus firms of Ahmedabad i.e. M/s.Shivay Enterprise, M/s.Avi Enterprise and M/s.Parshwnath Engineering. During the course of the search at the premises of M/s.KSEG, it was found that the petitioner also availed the credit on the strength of invoices issues by the said three firms.

3.6. After the investigation was carried out, the statement of the petitioner was recorded on 26^th March, 2019 wherein, in answer to question No.11, the petitioner refused to peruse the printout of the vehicles verification report downloaded from the website https://vahan.nic.in by stating that such reports were not concerning him but agreed with the ‘Remarks Column’ shown against 27 vehicles out of 119 vehicles as mentioned in the table and also accepted that heavy cargo like scraps cannot be transported in three wheeler tempo/three wheeler passenger vehicles, scooters, motorcycles, bus and tractor trailer etc.

3.7. The petitioner was also arrested on 30^th March, 2019 by the respondent-Authorities and was released on bail after deposit of Rs.35 Lakhs as personal bail and after agreeing for some other conditions of the bail order.

3.8. It appears that the summons dated 14.08.2019 was also issued upon the petitioner to submit relevant documents i.e. Invoices of Suppliers, Lorry Receipts, Public Consignments Notes and E-way Bills etc. for the period from July, 2017 to March, 2018 and 2018-19 in case of four firms as well as M/s.Aadarsh Trading and M/s.Vikas Trading. In response to such summons, the petitioner by letter dated 21.08.2019 submitted that the so called documents pertaining to the said period were not in his possession and the same were lost by the person from his Office namely Mr.Keshavkumar Sharma during the transit from Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad to Hapudmod Bus-Station at Delhi and the same was reported to Sihani Gate Police Station, Delhi. Accordingly, the summons dated 16.09.2019 was issued to Mr.Keshavkumar Sharma to give statement but he did not produce himself before the respond