UP perfumer gets bail after 8 months

Prayagraj : The Allahabad High Court has granted bail to Kannauj-based perfume businessman Piyush Jain in a tax evasion case after eight month.

Jain had been in jail since December 2021 when more than Rs 196 crore cash and 23 kg gold were seized from his residence and factory in Kanpur and Kannauj during a search by a team of the Directorate of GST Intelligence (DGGI).

Justice Subhash Vidyarthi allowed Jain’s bail application and imposed several conditions including that he will not tamper with the evidence during the trial and will not influence any witness.

Jain was seeking his release on bail in criminal case number 7646 of 2022 in the court of special chief judicial magistrate (economic offences)/additional metropolitan magistrate-III, Kanpur Nagar.

On December 22 last year, the DGGI team conducted a search on the residential and official premises of the applicant at Kannauj and Kanpur which continued till December 28.

Jain was arrested on December 26, 2021.

According to the applicant, he was suffering from multiple diseases like double vision, glaucoma, insomnia, hypertension, anxiety and blood pressure for which he was undergoing treatment.

He submitted in the bail plea that he had already paid a sum of Rs 54.09 crore towards tax, interest and penalty and he had undertaken to deposit the amount of any additional liability whereas the department was yet to ascertain his tax liability.

Further, the applicant had already spent more than eight months in jail and during this period the department had not sought his custodial interrogation which shows that his custody was not at all required and therefore he may be released on bail.

The court while allowing the bail application observed: “Even if the allegation is one of grave economic offence, it is not a rule that bail should be denied in every case since there is no such bar created in the relevant enactment passed by the legislature nor does the bail jurisprudence provide so.