GST: Bombay HC Reverses Provisional Order for Attaching Bank Account

The petitioner, in this case, is Praful Nanji Satra. He had, before CORONA Pandemic, rented out commercial premises on a license basis and received licence fees (from licensee). Petitioner is duly registered with the GST Department and It is the obligation of the petitioner to pay GST on the aforesaid license fees. However, the respondent conducted search operations in the official address of the petitioner for various other companies having offices at Satra Retail Private Limited, Bleu Noir Infrastructures Private Limited, Prarush Impex, and Minaxi Satra Ventures. Thereafter summons as per section 70 of the Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 were issued. Contrarily, no such search was undertaken against the petitioner and so the petitioner did not receive any summons from the respondent’s office

Coming to GST, the petitioner had submitted returns till & February 2020 and consequently paid GST. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the petitioner did not receive any license fee with respect to rented premises from March 2020 onwards and in consequence, no goods and services tax was deposited from March 2020 onwards. As a result, the petitioner ( Praful Nanji Satra) deposited the GST return for June 2020 and declared Nil tax. Resultantly, the respondent extended the last date for filing of GST return Get to know the online procedure of filing GST returns in India. We provide each and every GST form according to the taxpayers category till July 31, 2020.

Later on, the petitioner came to know that his Bank Account with ICICI bank was attached by the respondent. Resultantly the petitioner was prevented from operating the above-mentioned bank account. In an aggressive response, the petitioner submitted detailed representation before the respondent that requested the aforesaid authority to withdraw the provisional attachment of the bank account.

No Response Received From the Representation

The Coram of Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Milind N.Jadhav noted that the impugned attachment of bank account is without jurisdiction and remedy must be given to the petitioner.

The court held that the provisional attachment order dated 19.06.2020 that was impugned cannot be sustained. So, the same is quashed. Consequently, respondents are issued a directive to withdraw the provisional attachment of the bank account of the petitioner.

 Hence, the Honourable court held that the impugned provisional attachment order dated 19.06.2020 cannot be upheld. And the same petition is quashed. In consequence, the respondent was directed to withdraw the provisional attachment of the ICICI bank account of the petitioner.