On the report of Hemant Aggarwal moved in Punjab and Haryana Court in view of alleged VAT scams of value worth over Rs 10,000 towards false refund of VAT amount. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday and Wednesday conducted multiple searches in various towns Kaithal, Fatehabad, Karnal, Sirsa, Rohtak, Hisar, Bhiwani and Tosham in Haryana in which raids were also conducted at the residential and business premises of large number of businessmen as well as three former state administrative service officers, as part of a money-laundering investigation linked to an alleged VAT scam when VAT amount was found refunded against fake bills, official sources said.
About 14 locations in the state were raided on Tuesday by ED teams and six locations raided by ED teams on Wednesday which started in early morning hours and continued till late night, the sources said, with the identification of their names three retired Haryana state civil service officers, a excise and taxation officer Ashok Sukhija and two former deputy excise taxation commissioners and large number of private persons including top businessmen and political leaders were also covered during the searches, the ED teams had interrogation with them for six to 10 hours continuously. Information reveals, there are still a large number of people in the state allegedly involved in GST frauds who received refund of GST amount on the basis of fake bills yet to be investigated by ED.
Information also reveals that a retired ETO in Kaithal and another senior officer in the Excise Taxation department at Rohtak were arrested by the state police last year as part of the investigation. The money-laundering case stems from a 2020 FIR by the Haryana Police related to a case of illegal issuance of Form C worth Rs 1,000 crore in Gurugram is also under process. According to rules, Form C is issued by the Haryana government against the sale of goods outside the state and a trader or business entity can avail refund by using it. It was alleged that the traders created bogus sale bills, leading to losses for the state exchequer. According to sources, the search operation is aimed at unearthing evidence of money laundering and other financial irregularities linked to the scam. The ED officials are scouring the premises for documents and records related to the alleged fraud. The VAT scam is believed to have caused a significant financial loss to the state estimates worth crores.
