Mumbai: The Metropolitan Magistrate Court has granted bail to 31-year-old Dhwani Dattani, former director of Quenteco World Ltd, who was arrested for allegedly defaulting on GST payments. While granting bail, the court noted the defense's argument that although the department issued a notice for a default of Rs 5.49 crore, it raised a demand for Rs 11 crore without valid justification.
Dattani was arrested by the state GST department on March 29 for allegedly failing to pay GST amounting to Rs 11 crore by the firm. While seeking bail, her lawyer Dr Sujay Kantawala contended that she had resigned from the firm in February 2024, but the agency had summoned her to attend the office on March 22 to give a statement as a witness but arrested her days later.
The defense argued that while the DRC-22 intimation on March 26 cited pending GST of Rs 5.49 crore, the demand was inflated to Rs 11 crore without explanation in the alleged GST demand to arrest the applicant since the threshold to arrest a person for any alleged offense is Rs 5 crore and above.
The prosecution objected to the bail plea, claiming that she was a responsible person and had fraudulently claimed input tax credit from non-genuine entities amounting to Rs 11.15 crore.
After hearing both sides, the court noted, “It is admitted by the respondent that, as per the DRC intimation, the demand of Rs 5.49 crore has been paid using GST credit reversal and bank transfers. Thus, it shows utilisation of inadmissible input tax credit by the applicant around Rs 5.51 crore. Thus, it appears that further custody of the applicant is no longer required,” and subsequently granted her bail.
