HYDERABAD: The owner of two trading firms got a reprieve when the Telangana high court stayed the show-cause notices issued against him by
Hyderabad GST commissionerate
.
A division bench of made strong observations against the officials saying that they are behaving inhumanly.
“In the new
GST raj which replaced the old Central Excise Act’s licence raj, the officials are proving to be worse than police sub-inspectors in a rural police station,” it said and stopped proceedings against petitioner J
Sridhar Reddy, proprietor of Bharani Commodities and Hyderabad Steels.
The petitioner also charged
GST officials
— C Sudha Rani and B Srinivasa Gandhi — with demanding Rs 5 crore as
bribe
to get him out of the case.
The bench of Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice T Vinod Kumar issued notices to them along with other officials and sought to know from them why their orders were cryptic without any proper explanation for filing the case against Sridhar.
“This is contrary to the Supreme Court order and hence comes under contempt,” it said.
The GST department argued that the two private firms owed Rs 8.5 crore GST dues and the officials are proceeding as per law. Sridhar Reddy, however, said the officials raided his house and detained his wife in the GST office for an entire day when he was not in the country.
Petitioner’s counsel Vedula Srinivas said: “The GST officials said that some third parties had deposed against us. This was shown as the basis for case against us. What we are seeking is to allow us to cross-examine them as per the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court.”
“Since the GST officials have rejected our request and are going against us unilaterally, we are praying before this court,” Srinivas said.
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