The court emphasized that bail should not be denied based solely on the seriousness of charges, balancing individual liberty with societal interests.

JUDGMENT

Mr. N.S. Shekhawat, J. (Oral)

The petitioner has filed the instant petition under Section 439 of the Cr.P.C. with a prayer to grant a regular bail in complaint case, i.e., COMA/46591/2023 dated 15.06.2023 under Sections 132(I) (b) & (c) of punishable under Sub-Clause (I) of Section 132 (1) of CGST Act, 2017 read with section 20(XV) of IGST Act, 2017.

2. Learned counsel submits that the petitioner has been falsely involved in the complaint case captioned above, which has been filed by the respondent/department on 15.04.2023. Learned counsel further submits that in the present case, the mandatory provisions of Section 69 of the GST Act have not been followed by the respondent and the petitioner was wrongly arrested without following the due process of law. Consequently, the arrest of the petitioner in the present case was illegal and without jurisdiction. Even notice under Sections 73 read with Section 74 of the CGST Act has been issued to the petitioner and the prosecution had been wrongly registered against him without determination of the tax liability. Still further, the petitioner had neither supplied any goods nor provided any services without invoices and did not claim Input Tax Credit at any point of time. Learned counsel further submits that the petitioner has not received any monetary benefit in the form of availment of any Input Tax Credit or refund. The petitioner is in custody for the last 11 months and the offence is triable by the Court of Magistrate. Thus, the trial Court may take considerable time in concluding the trial.

3. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents has vehemently opposed the submissions made by the petitioner. Learned counsel further submits that there was sufficient evidence to show that the petitioner had violated the provisions of Section 132(1) (b) and 132(1)(c) of the CGST Act and the petition is liable to be dismissed by this Court.

4. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

5. It has been held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in the matter of Sanjay Chandra v. CBI, 2011(4) RCR (Criminal) 898 and 2011 AIR (SCW) 6838 as follows:-

"14. In bail applications, generally, it has been laid down from the earliest times that the object of bail is to secure the appearance of the accused person at his trial by reasonable amount of bail. The object of bail is neither punitive nor preventative. Deprivation of liberty must be considered a punishment, unless it can be required to ensure that an accused person will stand his trial when called upon. The courts owe more than verbal respect to the principle that punishment begins after conviction, and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and duly found guilty. From the earliest times, it was appreciated that detention in custody pending completion of trial could be a cause of great hardship. From time to time, necessity demands that some un-convicted persons should be held in custody pending trial to secure their attendance at the trial but in such cases, 'necessity' is the operative test. In this country, it would be quite contrary to the concept of personal liberty enshrined in the Constitution that any person should be punished in respect of any matter, upon which, he has not been convicted or that in any circumstances, he should be deprived of his liberty upon only the belief that he will tamper with the witnesses if left at liberty, save in the most extraordinary circumstances. Apart from the question of prevention being the object of a refusal of bail, one must not lose sight of the fact that any imprisonment before conviction has a substantial punitive content and it would be improper for any Court to refuse bail as a mark of disapproval of former conduct whether the accused has been convicted for it or not or to refuse bail to an un-convicted person for the purpose of giving him a taste of imprisonment as a lesson.

15. In the instant case, as we have already noticed that the "p