A tax consultant and a businessman have been convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment in a tax refund fraud case. Other two accused, an officer from the Income Tax Department and a television actor cum real estate dealer, were acquitted by the court for want of evidence.
It is alleged that 61-year-old tax consultant Mohan Ghadge, 62-year-old businessman Dilip Vyas and two others, Manoj Sangtani and Munaf Kasmani, collected documents from people who desired to obtain loan from the Shree Guru Co-operative Credit Society and misused it on the basis of which refunds of Income Tax Department were generated.
The court while holding Ghadge and Vyas guilty of the fraud, observed, “They have forwarded these documents to erring income tax officers. The fake income tax refunds were generated on the basis of these documents. The beneficiaries had no transaction of whatsoever nature with firms of Ghadge namely M/s Ambika Impex Trade, Shree Sadguru Finance and Investment Company and Adinath Trading and Rina Industries company of Sandeep Roy. Roy was, however, an employee of Ghadge and Vyas.
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The CBI had claimed that income tax returns were generated. Thereafter, though the cases were assigned to different income tax officers, the accused in connivance with the Income-Tax officials got the case assigned to one officer who processed the refunds.
The agency claimed that there were such 103 cases in which fraudulently refunds were issued. The income officer who testified in the court had said that Income-Tax department had managed to freeze accounts of 53 but they could not trace 50 such accounts causing loss to the tune of Rs 5.3 crore to the income tax department.
While acquitting the accused, special judge VP Desai criticised the investigating officer observing, “The investigation is shabby and design to keep loopholes in investigation. The copy of the judgment is sent to DIG/HOB of CBI, ACB, Mumbai, to take appropriate action against the erring investigating officer.”
