'Lawyers Filing Plea Even Without Meeting Clients': Delhi High Court Flags Rise Of Fictitious Firms In GST Cases

A division bench of Justices Prathiba M. Singh and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar made the observation while dealing with a petition seeking review of the order cancelling Petitioner's GST registration with retrospective effect.

The plea revealed that the alleged proprietor of the Petitioner-firm had admitted to the fact in some investigation that he is not connected with the Petitioner-firm.

The High Court thus observed,

“Repeatedly, this Court notes that various fictitious persons, in whose names the firms are registered by impersonating or stolen identity, have approached the Court. In such matters, lawyers have not even met the clients and the affidavits have been attested and notarized without meeting the clients.”

It further noted that the lawyers simply rely upon “reference by some accountant or other consultants, GST practitioners” to justify their appearance in such matters.

In the case at hand, the counsel submitted that he himself had not met his client and the matter was referred to him by an accountant. He further shared WhatsApp chats with the said accountant where credentials of the firm were given.

This prompted the Court to observe that it has noticed incorporation of fictitious firms, at the behest of Accountants.

It also cited a batch of matters where FIR was ordered after the firms itself were found to be of fictitious clients and fictitious affidavits had wrongly been notarized.

In the present case however, the Court stopped short of making adverse observations against the counsel, stating that he is a regular practitioner and has disclosed all the details as to how the matter was referred to him by an accountant.

It however summoned the accountant, who had referred the matter, to appear on November 21.

Appearance: Mr. Pulkit Verma and Mr. Saket Jain, Advs. for Petitioner; Mr. Akshay Amritanshu, SSC with Ms. Drishti Saraf, Adv. for Respondent

Case title: M/S S K Overseas v. Superintendent Range 20 Central Gst Division

Case no.: W.P.(C) 6124/2024

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