Ex-Telangana chief secretary, four others booked over GST 'fraud'

Hyderabad, Jul 29 (PTI) A case has been registered by police here against former Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and four others in connection with an alleged GST fraud to the tune of Rs 1,400 crore.

Based on a complaint filed by an official of the Commercial Tax Department the FIR was registered by the Central Crime Station (CCS)--a wing of Hyderabad police on July 26, which also names an assistant professor of IIT-Hyderabad.

The case was registered on charges of criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy among others and other relevant sections of the IT Act, police said.

“On preliminary verification of (11) cases which were masked by IIT-Hyderabad, evasion of more than Rs 400 crores was identified. One such masked case was that of Telangana State Beverages Corporation Limited. Furthermore, evasion of more than Rs 1,000 crores was unearthed through fraudulent cases detected in the State,” the FIR said.

A Forensic report also indicated the transfer of proprietary data of Commercial Taxes Department to a third party without authorization, it said.

According to the complainant, the scam came to light after alleged GST fraud by Big Leap Technologies and Solutions Private Limited, was noticed.

In this connection, IIT-Hyderabad was engaged as service provider for development of software by the Commercial Taxes Department.

"Discrepancy figured in desk Audit of Big Leap Technologies and Solutions Private Limited did not appear in the reports generated through the "Scrutiny Module" developed by IIT-Hyderabad,” the complainant said.

An Officer from the department visited IIT-Hyderabad and furnished a visit report, in which various lacunae were identified like non-documentation of changes made to the software, changes in applications being done on oral instructions from the then Special Chief Secretary, Revenue (CT) and other officials.

It was also reported that the scrutiny reports developed did not capture the Integrated GST (IGST) discrepancies, leading to loss of revenue, the complainant added.

An explanation was sought from the officers and Plianto Technologies Private Ltd, as the operations pertaining to the Commercial Taxes department were being run in the name and banner of Plianto Technologies Private Ltd in the premises of IIT-Hyderabad.

"They replied that the authority was drawn from the instructions issued by the then Special Chief Secretary, Somesh Kumar. They have also stated that they have given a format to IIT-Hyderabad for capturing all four discrepancies i.e., IGST, CGST, SGST and Cess and they were not aware as to why IGST and Cess notices were not generated," the complainant said.

At a meeting of officials of C-DAC (which was requested to conduct comprehensive audit of Applications and Database hosted at IIT- Hyderabad), it was revealed that the assistant professor took instructions through a WhatsApp group, "Special Initiatives" with then Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and the other officers and the assistant professor as its members.

"On perusal of the WhatsApp Chat history, it was noticed that certain reports were generated estimating IGST loss and instructions were issued not to cancel registrations even in fraud cases," the complainant claimed.

Notices were issued to IIT-Hyderabad Director and in response to which the Director stated that all the developments were done following the guidelines issued by the Department officials and the former Chief Secretary from time to time.

The complainant further alleged that the masking of data pertaining to taxpayers, issuing instructions not to cancel fraudulent cases, among others point towards criminal conspiracy and the aspect of pecuniary benefits accruing to the individuals involved in the case cannot be ruled out and requested the police to probe further into the case. PTI VVK GDK VVK ROH