A sales tax officer (STO) was charged by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for allegedly granting a company a fictitious Goods and Services Tax (GST) refund of ₹4.69 crore without conducting any due diligence. After the state GST department conducted an internal investigation, the anomalies were discovered.
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Gajanan Lad, 59, the accused, is employed with the State GST Department in Mazgaon as a STO. He was booked with Intercrib Market, whose returns were purportedly fraudulently cleared by the STO. The ACB officers claim that Lad conspired with the Intercrib Market to give them a refund while he was assigned to Ghatkopar. In order to acquire a GST number for the business, the corporation reportedly falsified rental agreements.
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According to the police officer, the dealer filed an application seeking a refund of ₹4.69 crore even though he did not pay any taxes to the government in the form of GST. Purposefully authorized the claims without checking these applications. According to a police source, the officer cleared the claims even though the government portal flagged them as suspicious.
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A case was filed under the Indian Penal Code‘s sections 109 (abetment), 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), and 7 (offenses related to public servants) and 13 (criminal misconduct by public servant).
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According to the ACB officer, a similar scam was discovered in March 2024, when a STO was charged with permitting 39 fraudulent proposals totaling ₹175.93 crore. These businesses sought GST refunds while displaying phony exports. But nothing had been exported, and everything was phony,” he claimed.
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