Ex-chief secretary Somesh Kumar, four others face FIR for ‘GST violation’
HYDERABAD: Central Crime Station (CCS) investigators of Hyderabad police have filed a case against former chief secretary Somesh Kumar and two senior officers of the commercial taxes department for alleged GST violations. A forensic report also indicated the transfer of proprietary data of commercial taxes department to a third party without authorization.
Joint Commissioner (CT), Central Computer Wing, Nampally, Hyderabad, K Ravi Kanuri, lodged a complaint on the alleged GST fraud on July 26. Apart from the trio, the FIR has named Plianto Technologies Private Limited and IIT-Hyderabad assistant professor Sobhan Kumar.
On preliminary verification of 11 cases, which were masked by IIT-Hyderabad, evasion of over Rs 400 crore was identified. Police in the FIR alleged that one such masked case was that of Telangana State Beverages Corporation Limited. Furthermore, evasion of over Rs 1,000 crore was unearthed through fraudulent cases detected in the state.
The allegations include masking of data pertaining to taxpayers, issuing instructions not to cancel fraudulent cases etc. The other alleagations were estimating IGST loss and still not incorporating IGST head in the notices issued, making the proprietary data pertaining to the commercial taxes department available to a third party IP, changing the jurisdiction of taxpayers to persons in his coterie without authority, thereby favouring the taxpayers against whom advance rulings were issued with a favourable disposition.
