Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in its judgment dated 16 August, 2021 in Criminal Appeal No. 838 of 2021, arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 5442/2021, has observed as follows:
“We may note that personal liberty is an important aspect of our constitutional mandate. The occasion to arrest an accused during investigation arises when custodial investigation becomes necessary or it is a heinous crime or where there is a possibility of influencing the witnesses or accused may abscond.

It has been brought to the notice of the Board that in certain instances, summons under Section 70 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (‘the CGST Act) have been issued by the field formations to the top senior officials of the companies in a routine manner to call for material evidence/ documents. Besides, summons have also been issued to call for statutory records viz. GSTR-3B, GSTR-1 etc., which are available online in the GST portal.

Prosecution is the institution or commencement of legal proceeding; the process of exhibiting formal charges against the offender.

Attention is invited to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for verification of risky exporters and their suppliers dated 23.01.2020 issued to CGST and Customs formations as well as Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) and SOP dated 20.05.2020 issued to CGST formations and DGARM vide F. No. CBEC-20/16/07/2020-GST which provided for the procedure to be followed for verification of the risky exporters and their suppliers.