GST fraud of ₹60 crore unearthed in Punjab

Patiala-based trader arrested

August 23, 2019 12:42 am | Updated 12:42 am IST - CHANDIGARH

Punjab’s Department of Excise and Taxation on Thursday said it has busted an alleged Goods and Services Tax (GST) bogus billing scam in Patiala, involving 60 crore.

Additional Excise and Taxation Commissioner-cum-Director (Investigation) Navdeep Kaur Bhinder said that a businessman in Patiala’s Khanauri Mandi dealing in iron and scrap has been found to be involved in the unscrupulous activity.

“After following due process of law and conducting detailed enquires, the accused,, who is proprietor of Ganpati Motor Store, has been arrested,” she said in Patiala.

‘Fake invoices’

“The owner of the firm used to procure fake GST invoices of iron and scrap from Delhi without physical delivery of goods. It has also been detected that some of the vehicles used in the transportation of goods were found to be scooters and motorcycles. A total of 945 vehicles were shown to have transported iron and scrap goods from Delhi to Khanauri Mandi, whereas after verification it was found that only 67 vehicles were shown to have passed through a Rohtak-based toll plaza. The verification of these 67 vehicles revealed that these vehicles had actually not passed through the toll plaza and only fake toll plaza receipts had been generated,” said Ms Kaur, adding that the fact has been confirmed by toll plaza authorities.

“In this case the accused was creating bogus input tax credit running into crores of rupees and was further passing on to various dealers of Punjab,” she said.

Ms. Kaur said investigation was on to identify other unscrupulous people involved in the scam.

“We also plan to launch a campaign against dealers, traders involved in cases of tax evasion,” the excise official said.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.