Hyderabad: Under the guise of GST, it seems an “inspector raj” is on, the Telangana High Court observed on Friday while hearing a case filed by a steel trader who alleged officials asked him to pay Rs 5 crore as bribe to get out of a tax-evasion case.
The court questioned the jurisdiction and powers vested in the GST authorities in arresting traders on the allegations of tax evasion.
A division bench comprising Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Tadakamalla Vinod Kumar observed that it seemed the GST officials were wrongly following the lines of the local police handling matters of law and order.
The bench heard a petition from J.S. Sridhar Reddy of Bharani Commodities, which runs steel business in the wholesale market. He submitted that he was in Singapore on February 27, 2019, when a search of his house and office premises at Punjagutta was done by the GST anti-evasion cell. After the search, they took his wife to their office at Basheerbagh and she…