Point of Law: Any offence under this Act may, either before or after institution of prosecution, be compounded by Commissioner on payment, by person accused of the offence, to Central Government or State Government, as case be, of such compounding amount in such manner as may be prescribed

JUDGMENT :

SUBHASH VIDYARTHI, J.

1. Heard Sri Ashish Deep Verma and Sri Azad Khan, Advocates, the learned counsel for the applicant and Sri Dhananjay Awasthi, the learned counsel for the C.G.S.T. and Customs.

2. The instant application has been filed seeking release of the applicant on bail in Case No. IV – CE (9) CP/Agra/Nitin/25119 251/2019, under Sections 132 (1) (B) (I), Central Goods & Services Tax Act, 2017 (which will hereinafter be referred to as ‘the CGST Act’), Police Station Hari Parvat, District Agra during pendency of trial in the Court below.

3. As per the prosecution case, the officials of Central Goods & Services Tax & Central Excise, Commissionerate Agra were investigating a case of huge evasion of GST on the basis of an intelligence input that the applicant is indulging in issuing bogus invoices without supply of goods, in the name of fake firms created by him. On 20.12.2019, a team of certain officers of Anti Evasion Branch, CGST & Central Excise, Commissionerate Agra conducted a search at four different locations belonging to the applicant.

4. It is stated that during search of the residential premises of the applicant, a mobile phone alongwith a SIM card, 6 PAN cards, 5 Voter Identity Cards, 10 debit/credit cards, 8 cheque-books and several other documents were recovered. An analysis of the data contained in the aforesaid mobile phone revealed several fake tax invoices, ledgers, a list of 38 bank accounts and Form GSTR-3B etc. Analysis of the mobile data revealed communication of the applicant with other persons directing them to issue invoices, e-way bills etc. and hundreds of invoices issued in the name of various firms, were found in the mobile phone. In a laptop computer recovered from another premises of the applicant, tax calculations of various firms were there, the mention whereof was found in the mobile phone data. A person present at the location had introduced himself as Chandra Prakash Kriplani and he stated that he was an employee of the applicant and he produced the electricity bill of the building in the name of the applicant. Two laptop computers, 10 mobile phones and some rough papers having details of many fake firms viz, the name of the proprietor and GSTIN addresses etc. were also recovered. It is said that the mobile phones were used to receive one time password (OTP) at the time of GST registration and the aforesaid details matched with the data available in the mobile phone of the applicant, indicating the applicant's control over the fake firms. A currency note counting machine, a printer and a router were also recovered from the premises of the applicant.

5. As a result of the simultaneous searches conducted at 4 locations of the applicant on 20.12.2019 and also upon investigation, it was found that 126 fake firms have been created by the applicant and Chandra Prakash Kriplani and bogus invoices were issued by the aforesaid firms for passing on inadmissible input tax credit to various purchasers, without any actual supply of goods.

6. As per the prosecution case, it has been revealed during investigation that the total invoice value of the fake supplies made by the aforesaid 126 bogus firms is Rs. 691.35 Crores and the total GST evasion involved in it is Rs. 100.30 Crores.

7. In his statement recorded on 20.12.2019, the aforesaid Chandra Prakash Kriplani stated that he was working as an employee of the applicant for the past 6-7 months and the applicant used to pay him Rs. 20,000/-per month as salary; that he had studied upto class-X only and that he used to generate e-way bills on the directions of the applicant. In his further statement recorded on 24.12.2019 and 27.01.2020, Chandra Prakash Kriplani has stated that all the firms were created by the applicant and a forged PAN and a Voter Identity Card had been prepared by the applicant in the name of one Pushpendra Kumar Gupta and on both the aforesaid documents, Kriplani's photographs had been used.

8. Out of the 126 bogus firms, propriet