• Notification Date: 12-11-2021
• Notification No: 27/2021-22

Bengaluru Pub owner and staff booked for assaulting GST official

The Bengaluru city police has registered a case against a pub owner and his staff for allegedly assaulting a Goods and Service Tax (GST) officer.

The complainant , Vinay Nandal, a GST inspector and resident of Domlur, said the incident took place after midnight on November 5, when he was at Happy Brew pub in Koramangala, Bengaluru.

According to the complaint, Vinay went to the pub at 8 pm. Around 10.30 pm, a person approached him and asked who he was, to which Vinay identified himself as a GST officer. Then, around 12.30 am, the pub owner Rakesh Gowda came up to him and asked him to pay the bill. Over the next 30 minutes, Gowda, bouncers and others assuming Vinay was a fake GST officer, asked for his ID card.

When Vinay refused to provide any ID card, Rakesh and his staff took him to a room where they allegedly assaulted him for almost three hours before releasing him.

The police has registered a case under Sections 323 (Voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (Wrongful confinement), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code against Rakesh Gowda and the staff of the pub.

A police officer at Koramangala police station mentioned that the pub owners are frequently confronted by fake GST officers who don’t pay the bill. The officer claimed that even some real officers also don’t pay bills at pubs.

In this specific case, whether the fight started over bill payment or other issues is yet to be determined.