Salve : The complaint had nothing to do with the Petitioner. There was a company called Design Tech. Design Tech obtained GST credits from a company called Skill Tech or something.
Justice Trivedi : Agreement was with whom?
Salve : With State Govt.
Salve : The complaint relates to some GST credit which Design Tech took from Skill Tech.
Salve says that the FIR was registered on the basis of a Preliminary Enquiry in 2021.
Justice Bose : When did the enquiry start?
Salve : It is based on a complaint of 7 September, 2021.
Justice Bose : Where do we get that?
Salve refers to page number.
Salve : In any case, the HC has taken the view that it is the date of the offence which matters for 17A. So I have hit a wall there.
Salve : Let us go by the record itself. The HC judgment says the Advocate General relied on this document.
Sr Adv Niranjan Reddy : This submission of document being produced after argument is not correct. This was the case in the remand order itself.
Justice Trivedi : Mr.Salve, if your case is that some document was produced after the argument was over, you did not have any opportunity to counter the document. So the Court did not have the benefit of full submissions. So without entering into merits, should we send back..
Justice Trivedi : I have my own doubts if there can be a caveat in a criminal matter.
Salve: in this court caveat is permitted in all cases.
Salve : As I have seen in my practice in this Court, there is no hearing given to the opposite side on whether notice should be hearing. I don't understand pre-notice hearing. They are on caveat, of course, they can be heard on interim order, but not on notice.
Salve refers tothe recent judgment in Pankaj Bansal case to argue that if the arrest is illegal, then the subsequent remand order will not validate an illegal arrest.
Salve : The Court had asked at best this will apply only to PC Act offences. I submit the jurisdictional fact of the Special Judge is the PC Act. Everything was before the Special Judge. So if 17A applies, everything goes.