madurai chiding the state commercial taxes officials for misuse of power the madurai bench of the madras high court has directed the roving squad in virudhunagar which detained a container truck of new twowheelers ferried from the manufacturers godown in pune to release the vehicle the court also set aside the penalty of rs189 lakh imposed on the dealer for the release of the truck and the goods inside it and agreed that a fine of rs 5000 as sought by the petitioners is enough to be paid as fine for the deviancethe sivakasi based dealer moved the court after a roving squad of the state tax department intercepted and detained a container truck while on its way to sivakasi the dealers had placed an order of 40 new twowheelers pulsar bikes from bajaj auto limited and the goods were shipped from pune to be delivered to the branch office at virudhunagar advt the goods were loaded on 23rd december 2018 and reached virudhunagar on 28th december the vehicle instead of halting at virudhunagar had moved towards sivakasi and had crossed about 7 km from virudhunagar when a roving squad intercepted the truckit was brought to the notice of the court that the container truck driver badrinath bhandari from maharashtra was not conversant in tamil or english which the officials took as noncooperation and seized the vehicle and refused to release the vehicle and the goods in it unless a fine of rs189 lakh was paid after perusing the documents and submissions made justice g r swaminathan wondered whether such a drastic order passed by the tax officials was really warranted in the facts and circumstances of the caseobserving that it is not a case of tax evasion the court said that the officials ought to have directed the driver to move towards virudhunagar when they intercepted the vehicle instead of adopting such a procedure the officials had chosen to be harsh and vindictive the court said the officials should have taken a sympathetic view of the lapse committed by the driver the court held and noted that the detention order and penalty imposed was unreasonable and disproportional tnn published on feb 4 2019 at 0648 pm ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etauto app get realtime updates save your favourite articles scan to download app madurai badrinath tamil nadu maharashtra pune dealers homenewsaftermarketmadras high court corrects tax evasion fine from rs 19 lakh to rs 5000 on bajaj auto dealer