Arrest and Bail Provisions Under GST Act: An Analytical Study.

Taxes are the major source of revenue for a country to run its administration while upholding its sovereignty. In India, revenue is collected through direct and indirect taxes with due adherence to the laws. With a revolution in the sphere of indirect taxation in India in 2016, there came the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act of 2017. It subsumed all the existing indirect taxes under one single umbrella, i.e., GST, with the motto of establishing a ‘One Nation, One Tax’ policy. The basic intention behind such reform was to make the tax burden lighter on the taxpayer by removing the cascading effect and introducing a better and easy compliance mechanism that ultimately focused on enhancing the tax base for the government. Alongside, it also incorporated provisions relating to search, seizure, arrest, and bail with regard to indirect tax evasion in the country. This paper is an analytical study of the provisions pertaining to arrest and bail with conditions precedent as specified under the GST Act and the corresponding impact so far as the implementation of the Act is concerned. The paper also draws inferences from the judicial pronouncements in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]