GST officers should not be forced to give statements after office hours: Jharkhand HC

Ranchi:  Jharkhand High Court said in one of its orders that no person should compel or put pressure on GST officers to give statements after office hours.

The division bench of High Court Acting Chief Justice S Chandrashekhar and Justice Navneet Kumar emphasized that under the rules of GST, the competent officer should not compel any person to give a statement after office hours.

The petitioner's counsel argued during his arguments that the statement of any officer should be recorded only during office hours.

Actually, GST officials had called Shiv Kumar Deora of Jamshedpur to record his statement. He was also interrogated once, which took a lot of time.

According to the applicant, he was interrogated till late night and was called for questioning again.

After which he filed a petition in the High Court demanding that he be called for questioning only during office hours.

During the hearing of the case, the court directed the GST officials to call a person for questioning only by following the instructions of the GST Commissioner and as per the provisions contained in the law.