Court No. - 2 Case :- MISC. BENCH No. - 34650 of 2019 Petitioner :- Shri Vajid Respondent :- State Of U.P.Thru.Finance Secy.Ministry Of Finance & Ors. Counsel for Petitioner :- N.C.Gupta,Manish Nigam,Tushar Kant Gupta Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. Hon'ble Munishwar Nath Bhandari,J. Hon'ble Manish Kumar,J. 1. By this writ petition, prayer is made for release of vehicle bearing U.P.-32 CN-5694 ceased by respondents. It is when vehicle carrying goods were found to be carried in violation of U.P. Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017( for short 'Act of 2017'). petitioner is vehicle owner and appeared before competent authority with request to release vehicle. 2. prayer made by petitioner was not accepted by respondents and accordingly and in absence of payment, vehicle could not be released. amount demanded by respondents is huge. It cannot be satisfied by petitioner thus, he is unnecessarily suffering on that count. 3. prayer is to cause interference in impugned order with direction to release vehicle. 4. written instructions given to Standing Counsel are being placed before this court and are taken on record. 5. It is submitted that petitioner was required to prove that whatever goods were carried in vehicle, were without his knowledge. 6. Burden lies on owner of vehicle to prove his innocence however while counsel appeared on behalf of petitioner, no proof was produced to show that goods carried in vehicle was without his knowledge. Thus, order for release of vehicle could not be passed. 7. We have considered submissions made by learned counsel for parties and perused record so as provisions of Act of 2017. 9. It is case where vehicle alongwith goods were seized when it was found carrying goods in violation of Act of 2017. petitioner alongwith owner of goods was served with notice before seizure of goods. petitioner is owner of vehicle but he failed to prove that he had no knowledge about goods carried in vehicle so as to discharge his burden as otherwise envisaged under Act of 2017. In absence of discharge of burden by owner of vehicle, order for release of vehicle could not be passed and we do not find any illegality in order. 10. However, while disposing of writ petition, liberty is given to petitioner to again approach authority with defence, as available to prove his innocence. In that case, matter would be heard afresh and dismissal of writ petition would not come in way of petitioner for aforesaid. 11. writ petition is disposed of with aforesaid. Order Date :- 23.1.2020 Shukla Vajid v. State Of U.P.Thru.Finance Secy.Ministry Of Finance & Or