Ahmedabad: Senior Assistant Editor at The Hindu newspaper, Mahesh Langa, on Monday sought to withdraw his petition before the Gujarat High Court, which challenged the magistrate court’s 10-day remand order in a GST fraud case against him. Although the court granted his request, it questioned the ‘hue and cry’ surrounding the matter.

The case was heard before the single bench of Justice Sandeep Bhatt, where Langa’s counsel informed the court that he had instructions to withdraw the petition, which the court permitted.

However, the court questioned the publicity of the case orally, Justice Bhatt said, “Why is it so publicized? Every citizen is a citizen. We don’t want any publicity, at least during the course of adjudication. This is not fair. It seems some attempt was made … We are not carried away by such attempts. That is not proper. He may not be interested in that publicity, but whoever is behind it.. because entire petition is published or some of it … That should not happen. Certainly, there was some … I don’t want to now disclose since you are withdrawing.”

“That is not healthy practice. Whoever it is politician, reporter, or some normal citizen. Court of law is court of law. It will be considered on its own merits. Then why such extra hue and cry…” the judge added.

Langa was arrested by the Ahmedabad crime branch on October 8 in connection with a GST fraud case. The following day, the court granted the police a 10-day remand. He contested the remand order, arguing that it was issued without proper consideration. His lawyer noted that Langa’s name was not included in the FIR.

The crime branch filed the FIR after a Central GST complaint about a scam involving shell companies created to claim fraudulent input tax credits. Langa’s arrest followed the discovery of suspicious transactions linked to bogus firms set up under his wife’s and father’s names using forged documents.

Following the FIR, the crime branch and Gujarat’s Economic Offences Wing conducted raids at 14 locations, including Ahmedabad, Junagadh, Surat, Kheda, and Bhavnagar, leading to the arrest of eight individuals so far.

Authorities claim over 200 fake firms were operating nationwide in a coordinated scheme to defraud the government using forged identities and documents to claim bogus tax credits. DeshGujarat