Bhubaneswar, Sep 13 : Economic Offences Wing, (EOW) Bhubaneswar has cracked a pan-India income tax refund scam with the arrest of one of the prime accused from Faridabad in Haryana.
EOW sources here on Tuesday said Neeraj Singla (28 )of Faridabad, Haryana, was arrested on September 9 last from Faridabad U/s 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC/ Sec.66 IT Act.
The accused was produced before the Court of J.M.F.C, Faridabad and brought to Bhubaneswar on 3 days transit remand for his production before the Court of SDJM, Bhubaneswar.
The accused is a Chartered Accountant (Intermediate) and one of the main conspirators and beneficiary of this PAN India TDS refund fraud and owns three companies —M/S All India Transport services. CKS Acoustics and M/S GDS associates.
He along with his other associates mainly Chartered Accountants runs the scam of an income tax refund by forging documents causing crores of loss to the Government exchequer. This is the first arrest in this case and an effort is on to arrest other accused persons.
EOW sources said a case was registered on the allegation of ITO, TDS-1, Bhubaneswar on the allegation that the TDS return in the form No-26-Q has been filed in the 1st quarter of Financial Year 2020-21 by M/s IAMO Solution Pvt. Ltd. by giving false and fabricated challan of Rs.2.70 crores in favour of 32 Taxpayers as the deduction of TDS on false payment of commission amounting to Rs. 27 crores.
During the investigation, it was found that the accused Neeraj Singla in criminal conspiracy with others forged the TDS challan filed by M/s IAMO Solution Pvt. Ltd. for Rs.2.70 crores, and credited the amount in the PAN of 32 beneficiaries.
Out of the refund amounts, a substantial amount has been diverted to the personal account of the accused and also to the accounts of his firms. Some amounts have been diverted to the accounts of some other firms which are ultimately managed by Singla.
A total amount of Rs.17.77 lakhs has been misappropriated by the accused from the total fraud amount of Rs.1.40 crores.
During the investigation, the mobile phone of the accused has been seized which contains so many incriminating communications relating to the fraudulent activities in claiming the TDS refund.
