Officials of Central Excise and Customs (Divisional Preventive Unit), Tuticorin, have unearthed a massive Rs.746-crore import duty evasion by Sterlite Industries India Limited.
Vice-president (indirect tax) S. Varadharajan of the company has been arrested on charges of involvement in the multi-crore scam.
He was produced in the Judicial Magistrate Court and remanded to judicial custody.
Mr. Varadharajan, who has been charged under Section 135(1) (D) of Customs Act 1962, was taken to Central Prison at Palayamkottai.
According to a source in the Central Excise and Customs Wing here, the company imported the copper concentrate under the advance licence scheme without payment of duty with an obligation to re-export the resultant final products.
Investigations revealed that it had allegedly cleared the final products intended for export to the Domestic Traffic Area Market (DTA), evading customs duty of Rs.746 crore from February 2005 to May 2010.
Evasion denied
Sterlite Industries India Limited claimed that the company had not evaded any excise or customs duty related to copper operations in Tuticorin. It paid annual duties and taxes of over Rs.1, 000 crore and had been following legal and statutory provisions. The High Court had heard the matter and reserved the orders on July 22 and it had granted stay till the disposal of writ petition, the company stated in a press release.
