Sakshi Bahl v. Principal Additional Director General – [2023] (Delhi)
The petitioner’s savings bank accounts has been temporarily attached by the department, and the banker were given instructions to prevent any withdrawals from those accounts without the government’s consent. As it was neither a taxable person nor a person covered by Section 122(1A) of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Act of 2017, it filed a writ suit challenging the order of provisional attachment and argued that the impugned order was ex facie without jurisdiction.
The Hon’ble High Court noted that the department has the authority under Section 83 of the Act to temporarily seize the assets or bank accounts of taxable individuals and those people listed under Section 122(1A) of the CGST Act. In the current case, the petitioner had provided an account statement that clearly demonstrated that the accused had been given loans and advances years earlier, and that any money received from the accused was simply a return of those loans and advances.
The Court further stated that it is not permissible for the department to seize funds from other people’s bank accounts based just on the presumption that those funds belong to any taxable person. As a result, the Court decided that the contested attachment order needed to be overturned since the petitioner did not qualify as a taxable entity or a person under section 122(1A).
