INDIA. Mumbai: Three traders were arrested by the officers of the Anti Evasion branch of the Central Goods and Service Tax (CGST) Commissionerate, West Delhi unit, on charges of claiming input tax credit (ITC) worth nearly Rs 91 crore by under-invoicing/ fake invoicing, and were sent to judicial custody till July 24.
The accused Shubham Gupta, Vinod Jain, and Yogesh Goel were booked under section 132 of the CGST Act on July 10 for claiming inadmissible credit and defrauding the state exchequer. They were remanded to judicial custody by the Metropolitan Magistrate for 14 days.
The accused knowingly committed offences under section 132(1) (b) and 132(1)(c) of the CGST Act, 2017 which are cognizable and non-bailable, as per the provisions of section 132(5) and are punishable under clause (i) of the subsection (1) of Section 132 of the Act, the CGST officers said.
The modus operandi involved floating of multiple firms with the intent to avail/utilize and pass on inadmissible credit. The firms involved in this network were M/s Girdhar Enterprises, Sadar Bazar, New Delhi, M/s Akshay Traders, Shalimar Baug, New Delhi, M/s Shree Padmavati Enterprises, Ghazipur, New Delhi, M/s Arun Sales, and 19 others. These 23 firms were floated to generate “goods-less” invoices with an intention to pass on fraudulent ITC without paying actual GST to the government.
Late Dinesh Gupta, Shubham Gupta, Vinod Jain, and Yogesh Goel were associated with this clandestine business of generating/selling fake invoices. They were dealing in various commodities and involved in the generation of “goods-less” invoices worth Rs. 551 crore and passing inadmissible ITC amounting to nearly Rs. 91crore. During interrogation, the accused admitted their guilt.
In February the CGST Commissionerate had arrested an advocate on charges of claiming input credit worth Rs 50.03 crore by opening multiple fictitious firms having no business activity and which were created solely for the purpose of passing on fake input tax credit. The accused identified as Vishal, advocate by profession,was practising law in Karkardooma court, Delhi. He had arranged various Know Your Customer (KYCs) of different persons to create multiple fictitious.
Similarly a trader Naveen Bansal was arrested on charges of claiming fake input credit worth Rs 9 crore, through “goods-less” invoices in March. Bansal was running M/s Ishita Ispat and M/s H. M. Trading Company, dealing in metal scrap and had floated multiple firms with the intent to avail/utilize and pass on inadmissible credit.
CGST, Delhi Zone which has been making sustained efforts to check evasion of GST, has till now unearthed the massive evasion worth crores of rupees crore in the current financial year.
