The Tax officer to investigate the misuse of login IDs by unknown persons facilitating tax evasion-The Madras High court
Title- M/S. she will Trading Company vs the commissioner of commercial Taxes & others
Decided on- 2/11/ 2023
+W.P No.-26493/2022
CORAM- HON’BLE JUSTICE MR. C SARAVANAN
INTRODUCTION
The petitioner filed the petition under article 226 of the Constitution of India to issue a Writ of Certiorari, calling for the records pertaining to the following impugned notice dated 29/07/2022 issued in TIN no. 33380340401/2014-15/A3 issued by the 3rd respondent and quash the notice.
FACTS
As per the facts the petitioner was a dealer engaged in the business of outward supply of curtaina ,form mattresses and pillows and was carrying on the business for almost 28 years and filed manual return under the provisions of erstwhile TNGST Act, 1956 and electronically under the provisions of TNVAT Act, 2006 for the assessment and have filed regular returns electronically till December 2013 in terms of the provisions of TNVAT Rules,2007 but from January 2014 the petitioner experienced a problem was unable to login and file return in the portal as the petitioners attempt to login was declined on the screen as invalid login account therefore the petitioner filed returns manually and had escalated the issue with the 2nd respondent on 06/02/2014, 22/12/2014,09/02/2015 and 02/07/2015 and the 2nd respondent informed the petitioner regarding to change the password then petitioner approach the 2nd respondent by way of complaint dated 18/09/2015 and filed a complaint before the cyber crime cell ,central crime Branch where petitioner alleged misuse of the petitioner login Id and password as a result huge transaction has been shown to be made by a person using the petitioner TIN numbered.whereas the respondent submit that the impugned recover notice does not call for an interference as the petitioner has suffered an assessment order dated 09/11/2021 which preceded notice prior to passing of the said order where the petitioner failed to participate in the assessment proceeding and several attempts were also made to serve a copy of the order on the petitioner.however the assessment order dated 9/11/2021 was returned with an endorsement no such company in this address and also after the G aaST Act came into force the petitioner started carrying on business with a new ud and closed down the business in the year 2018 and registration was cancelled on 05/03/2019 with the retrospective effect.
THE COURT ANALYSIS AND DECISION
As after considering the argument by the learned council for the petitioner and respondent as earlier also there was writ petition no. 37044/2016&37045 /2016 from the same location and the petitioner therein had similarly alleged that the petitioners login Id was misused by the third parth who filed returns and passed huge input Tax credit to third party and also filed a complaint before the cyber crime and considering the facts and to balance the intrest of the parties court is inclined to suo motu were the inspector of police cyber crime cell impleaded as the 4th respondent in the writ petition to carryout thorough investigation on the complainant filed by the petitioner as whether the complainant filed by the petitioner was genuine or not or whether the petitioner was facilitating a third party or whether the petitioner was himself masquerading as an unknown person to evade tax and the commercial tax department shall co ordinate with the rest of the respondent and the 4th respondent and investigate into the complainant of petitioner within 18 months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order till such investigation all revenue recovery proceeding against the petitioner shall be kept abeyance. The complainant of the petitioner turns out to be untrue or was intended to facilitate fraud being committed using the login id of the petitioner and the asset of the petitioner shall be brought to sale and should be remain attached by the respondent 1 to 3 and suitable steps to be taken and the respondent shall endeavour to bring a closer preferably within 18 months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. The writ petition stands disposed of with the above observation and the connected Miscellaneous petition are closed.
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