Mahesh Langa, a senior assistant editor at The Hindu, was arrested by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on Tuesday in an alleged GST scam.
Seen as an independent voice, Langa has been reporting on Gujarat for the last two decades and has reported on politics and public issues such as unemployment.
An FIR was lodged on Monday under IPC sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 474, and 120-B against 13 individuals and entities, including DA Enterprises – a firm allegedly owned by the journalist’s brother Langa Manojkumar Rambhai. It has been alleged that the company is among a network of 200 entities which tried to evade tax duties through fraudulent transactions.
The case and ‘conspiracy’
The case was filed on the basis of data mining inputs received through Himanshu Joshi, a senior intelligence officer in the office of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence in Ahmedabad.
Following the FIR, raids and investigations were carried out by teams from the crime branch, SOG, and EOW, at 14 locations across Gujarat, including Ahmedabad and Surat.
The FIR claims that a shell firm called Dhruvi Enterprise had obtained GST registration through a forged rent agreement, and appeared to be indulging in bogus input tax credit transfers through fake invoices without the actual supply of any goods or services.
Input tax credit refers to the GST paid by a registered entity which can help offset the GST liability on the goods or services the person registered under the company supplies.
Multiple firms across India were allegedly using the same PAN used for the registration of Dhruvi Enterprise, and the accumulated input tax credit was then passed on to 12 “active firms”, the probe suggested.
This story was originally published in newslaundry.com. Read the full story here.
