Bank Account of Taxable Person Can’t be Provisionally Attached to Secure Revenue Due from Another Taxable Person | HC

Case Details: Zhudao Infotech (P.) Ltd. v. Principal Additional Director General - [2023] 154 taxmann.com 571 (Delhi)

Judiciary and Counsel Details

• • Vibhu Bakhru & Amit Mahajan, JJ.
  • Tarun Gulati, Sr. Adv. Jitin Singhal, Vasundhara Shankar, Ms Aastha Arora, Mudit Kaushik, Yash Chandra, Arnab Chatterjee, Virat Anand, Shashank & Kumar Sambhav, Advs. for the Petitioner.
  • Harpreet Singh, Sr. Standing Counsel, Ms Suhani Mathur & Jatin Kumar Gaur, Advs. for the Respondent.

Facts of the Case

In the present case, the petitioner’s bank account was attached who was a payment aggregator platform on the ground that it was indulged in evasion of GST by providing an online payment gateway. It was alleged by the department that some merchants of petitioner’s online payment platform were non-existent and money was paid to fake and non-existent merchants.

The petitioner filed writ petition against the attachment of bank account and contended that there was no ground for the department to believe that it was necessary to attach its bank accounts in the interest of the Revenue.

High Court Held

The Honorable High Court noted that in the instant case, there was neither any demand nor any issue regarding petitioner’s liability under CGST Act, 2017 and the same was accepted by department. Therefore, petitioner’s bank account could not be attached for any amount due and payable to merchants using the online payment gateway. Thus, it was held that the bank account of petitioner can’t be attached for securing revenue of another taxable person.