Your Premises Cannot Stay Sealed After the Search Is Over: Gauhati High Court

A tax consultant's office was searched in April and was still sealed four months later. The Gauhati High Court quashed the prohibition order, holding that the power to seal premises ends when the search does.

The Gauhati High Court has held that GST officers cannot keep business premises sealed once a search is over. The premises of a tax consultant were searched on 1 April 2026, items were seized, an order of prohibition was issued in Form GST INS-03, and the office was still sealed more than four months later, shutting down a practice serving over two hundred clients.

Justice Devashis Baruah quashed the prohibition order and directed that the office be de-sealed. The power to seal or break open premises is available where access is denied to the officer; it is not a power to keep an office shut afterwards simply to hold on to what has been seized. Once the search is complete, that power is spent. The court also held that the items listed in the prohibition order could not be treated as goods liable to confiscation, and left the department free to seize afresh by a proper order if the investigation required it.

What this means for you. If your premises are sealed after a search has finished, ask on what basis the seal continues. Seizure rests on a reasonable belief that goods or documents liable to confiscation are concealed there, and CBIC's own guidance sets out the safeguards, including your right to copies of what is taken and the six-month limit for issuing a notice: https://gstcouncil.gov.in/sites/default/files/e-version-gst-flyers/Inspection_Search_Seizure.pdf

This is a Gauhati High Court decision, so it is persuasive rather than binding in Tamil Nadu.

Topics:GST searchGST seizureSection 67(4)prohibition orderINS-03sealed premisesGauhati High CourtGST raidtax consultantChennai GSTTamil Nadu GSTGST safeguards

Back to all GST updates