The Allahabad High Court has set aside the remand order and directed the release of Jai Kumar Aggarwal in a habeas corpus petition filed against the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI).
The Division Bench of Justice Siddharth and Justice Jai Krishna Upadhyay has observed that the actual service of “grounds of arrest” on the petitioner before affecting his arrest since in the remand order, there is no recital that the copy of “grounds of arrest” was provided to the petitioner at the time of his arrest and before producing him before the Remand Magistrate and finding of the remand order to be not in accordance with law. Therefore, the remand order suffered from legal infirmity and cannot be sustained.
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The brief facts of the case is that on 29.12.2025 at about 8:00 a.m., officers of respondent/department detained the petitioner/accused and started search proceedings at his residential premises as per Section 67 of CGST Act.
After the search proceedings under Section under Section 67 of the CGST Act, petitioner was arrested on 16.1.2026 as per Section 69 of the CGST Act aforesaid.
The petitioners submits that at about 6:40 p.m. on 16.1.2026 DGGI handed over an arrest memo without any annexure and search memo to the petitioner and directed the petitioner and his wife to accompany them. Apart from the aforesaid documents, no other documents were supplied to the petitioner at the time of his arrest. Neither “ground of arrest” nor “reasons to believe” as mandatorily required under Section 69 CGST Act read with the judgment of Apex Court in the case of Radhika Agrawal Vs. Union of India, (2025) 5 SCC 545 were furnished to the petitioner.
The petitioner submitted that the arrest of the petitioner under Section 69 of CGST Act is unwarranted since the offence alleged is punishable up to 5 years only and therefore in view of the recent judgment of Apex Court in the case of Satendra Kumar Antil Vs. C.B.I. & Another, passed in S.L.P.(Crl.) No. 5191 of 2021, dated 11.7.2022, the arrest of petitioner could not have been made.
The DGGI contended that to the counter affidavit and has demonstrated that the arrest memo, Jama Talasi, grounds of arrest and intimation regarding arrest of the petitioner sent to his wife were handed over to the petitioner and his wife and their signatures were taken on 16.1.2026 itself when the remand order was passed on 17.1.2026. Therefore, it is clear that the service of grounds of arrest and other documents were made on the petitioner before producing him before the Remand Magistrate on 17.1.2026. Therefore, there is full compliance of the mandate of law regarding providing of the “memo of arrest” and “grounds of arrest” to the petitioner and also providing the copy of intimation to his wife about his arrest.
The court allowed the writ and directed that the petitioner shall be released from custody on production of copy of this order before the court/authority concerned duly downloaded in official website of this Court without waiting for production of certified copy of this order, which shall be filed after the court reopens after weekly holidays.
Case Details
Case Title: Jai Kumar Aggarwal Versus DGGI
Case No.: Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. – 139 Of 2026
Date: 13/02/2026
Counsel For Petitioner: Mohit Singh
Counsel For Respondent: Dhananjay Awasthi, G.A.
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