The single judge bench of Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the case of Deepak Kumar Vs State of Punjab held that it is well-settled proposition of law that if a special provision has been made qua a particular subject (in the present case Value Added Tax), the said subject is excluded from the general provisions (in the present case Indian Penal Code).
BRIEF FACTS
The factual matrix of the case is that the police officers during patrolling recivied secret information that a truck was bringing furnace oil made from tyres from Haryana and using secret/abandoned passages for the purposes of entry into Punjab in order to evade tax, was committing the offence of cheating and they had ties with one firm at Tibbi Hari Singh who provided them the bills of his firm with the help of which these persons made further supplies. Thus, by cheating the Government in evading tax, they were doing illegal acts. Furthermore, based on the information received , the FIR came to be registered. The petitioner filed a petition before the high court under section 482 crpc for quashing of the FIR.
The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner contended that no offense under IPC was made out. It was further contended that even if the FIR was taken to be true, no criminal offense could be said to be made out, since if anybody enters into the State of Punjab from any other State through an unauthorised passage to evade tax, then only penal provisions of penalty etc. are provided under the VAT Act and that too if the person was apprehended at the spot along with the goods.
The learned counsel further relied upon the judgements titled Pritpal Singh Versus State of Punjab & another, Rakesh Kumar Versus State of Punjab & another, and Subhash Chander @ Subhash Kumar Versus State of Punjab.
The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the state has contended that an offence indeed is made out. The investigation stood completed and the report under Section 173 Cr.P.C. was filed as per which the accused were found cheating the Government by evading payment of tax.
COURT’S OBSERVATION
The hon’ble court held that there is no provision for registration of an FIR in such like matters of alleged evasion of tax. The provisions of the Act only provide for mandatory penalty. It is well-settled proposition of law that if a special provision has been made qua a particular subject (in the present case Value Added Tax), the said subject is excluded from the general provisions (in the present case Indian Penal Code). Since the provisions of the VAT Act do not provide for the registration of the FIR and the said Act is a Code in itself, the provisions of the IPC also cannot be invoked. Therefore, quite apparently an FIR could not have been registered against a person who was said to have evaded tax.
CASE NAME- Deepak Kumar Vs State of Punjab
CITATION- CRM-M-38352-2014
CORUM- Justice Jasjit Singh Bedi
DATE- 29.11.22
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