Officials of the Preventive Unit, Mangaluru Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), have unearthed an organised fake invoicing racket of arecanut. They have arrested two traders from Sirsi in Uttara Kannada on the charge of being part of an organised group involved in GST evasion to the tune of ₹17 crore.
A release issued by the office of Central Excise and Central Tax, Mangaluru, on Friday identified the arrested as Suresh Chatrabhoja Bhanushali and Shridhar Hegde, owners of Shrinivas Traders and Shyam Traders, Sirsi. A court has remanded them in custody till April 1.
As a part of a drive against fake invoicing, the officials carried out careful analysis of documents and the digital returns filed. It indicated that an organised group was issuing invoices without the actual supply of arecanuts. Hence, officials searched the registered premises of suspected group members, including transporters, in Sirsi, Puttur, Mangaluru, and Chitradurga. “Most of the premises were found to be non-existent, completely empty, or without any furniture/computers/records etc., indicating that the premises were being used only as a front to get registration under GST and carry out the illegal activities. Various incriminating documents and telephone recordings have been seized by the CGST officials, pointing to GST evasion of around ₹17 crore, against which recovery to the tune of ₹3.2 crore has been affected by CGST,” the release said.
Imamuddin Ahmad, Commissioner, CGST, Mangaluru, directly supervised the team of officials, led by Rajesh Poojari, Assistant Commissioner, and including Rajgopal K. and Pushpendra Singh, Superintendents, and Partha Sarathy Dey, Shailendra Jain, Arpit Kamra, and Abhinav Kumar, inspectors, the release stated.
