Permission to implement the GujCTOC (Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime) Act on 20 repeated offenders of bogus billing for GST evasion and acquiring illegal input tax credit was obtained from a Gujarat court.
The Enforcement Department of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Department of Gujarat has seized 7,666 bogus GST registrations in the bogus billing scam that came to light on Jan 3, 2024.
Other 6,000 bogus GST numbers were revealed in the bogus billing scandal that came out on Feb 7, 2023.
It is tentatively estimated that the accused obtained bogus input tax credits of around ₹1,000 crore using these GST numbers. Additionally, the possibility of this number being much higher cannot be ruled out.
The illegal input tax credit was obtained by making bills of iron, steel, metal scrap, chemicals, yarn, fabrics, and machinery.
141 arrests were made- 136 by Bhavnagar police, and 5 by the GST office of Gujarat.
20 of the arrested were repeat offenders- involved in bogus billing for the second or third time, and the court allowed them to be subjected to a provision of the GujCTOC Act, so they could be sentenced to 20 years of jail.
A total of 13,345 bogus GST registrations were found in the two scams that have come out within twelve months.
Preliminary investigation shows that by getting these bogus GST registrations, the accused created bogus bills and got more than ₹1,000 crore of input tax from Gujarat.
From Ahmedabad’s Amraiwadi, Behrampura, and Danilimda; and Bhavnagar’s Bhilwas, Aadhar cards were made of the poor and intoxicated people by the accused.
The unaware citizens were lured to Aadhar card centres by luring them with ₹500-1,000. Once the cards were made, the accused changed their mobile numbers linked to these cards.
4,307 bogus GST registrations were obtained in Gujarat with the help of Aadhar cards with this method. While 9,037 registrations were obtained in other states.
Bogus GST registrations were also executed by applying for a PANermanent Account Number) card online.
Apart from Gujarat, GST numbers from the states of Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh were obtained using the Aadhaar cards of unaware citizens.