Police’s economic offences wing (EOW) arrested five people, including a New Delhi-based chartered accountant (CA), in relation with an alleged goods and services tax (GST) fraud. Police officials said they uncovered transactions of over ₹100 crore made by over 100 shell companies as identified by these fake invoices.
The accused, identified as Ishwar Chand of Burail, Yashpal Jindal of Sector 37-C, his domestic help Anuradha Sharma of Khuda Jassu, Vinay Jain of East Punjabi Bagh, New Delhi, and Sushil Singla of Pitampura, New Delhi, are allegedly involved in two cases of GST fraud — executed by availing input credit based on fake invoices wherein they cheated the government of ₹11 crore.
A case was registered under Sections 420 (cheating), 467, 468, 471 (all forgery) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) had earlier been registered at the Sector 17 police station on December 13, 2019, following the complaint of Sanjeev Madaan, excise and taxation officer-cum-proper officer, ward number 1, Chandigarh, against proprietors of the AK Trading Company.
Faked business transactions to claim GST benefits
The complainant had alleged that proprietor Anuradha, in connivance with other associates, obtained a registration under various GST Acts. As per registration application applied on the GST portal, the main business of the firm was supplying scrap.
The excise and taxation inspector, however, submitted two reports that there was no business activity conducted at the business premises in Khuda Jassu. Two accounts in different banks were opened for the company by the accused Ishwar Chand and Yashpal Jindal, as was a fake rent agreement on the name Anuradha Sharma, who works for the latter.
Chand, Yashpal Jindal and the remaining accused allegedly hatched a plan to open fake firms and bank accounts and carry out bogus transactions to claim GST benefits at the New Delhi office of Sushil Singla, who is a chartered accountant. They also laundered black money by preparing fake bills.
During the period of registration, the accused had also made transactions of payable taxable supplies of goods to the tune of ₹21.68 crore, but did not deposit the due tax of ₹9 crore. Similarly, the accused made a transaction to the tune of nearly ₹8 crore and did not deposit the due tax of ₹2.5 crore.
Speaking about their modus operandi, superintendent of police (SP, EOW) Ketan Bansal said the accused Chand and Jindal were already in the scrap dealing business and were advised and guided Singla during the operations. Jain, meanwhile, prepared the fake bills.
All the accused are on police remand and further investigation into their dealings is underway.
CAs colluding in such big frauds give a very bad impression about the profession … As all will see GSTR 9C certification was taken out of the preview of Audit by CA only because the profession did not contribute much except taking huge fee from clients … NFRA is taking serious view of the whole professional competence of Auditors and CA Institute should be aware of this … Sometimes wonder whether the Institute and people at the helm of affairs are serious about these frauds or are they take these incidences just casual ..