Hyderabad: Former Telangana Chief Secretary and advisor to former chief minister KCR, Somesh Kumar along with three others were booked for alleged GST violations amounting to Rs 1,000 crore.
The Central Crime Station (CCS) of Hyderabad police have filed a case against Kumar, two former officers of commercial taxes department Kasi Visweswara Rao, Siva Rama Prasad, IIT Hyderabad Assistant Professor Sohan Babu and Plianto Technologies.
A case was registered under IPC sections 406, 409, and 120B after a forensic report indicated the transfer of data of commercial taxes department to a third party without authorization.
The complaint on alleged fraud was filed by Joint Commissioner, Central Computer Wing, Nampally, Hyderabad, K Ravi Kanuri.
In his complaint, Kanuri stated, “It was noticed that GST fraud was committed in the case of Big Leap Technologies and Solutions Private Limited. The entity, dealing in man power supplies, has passed on input tax credit worth Rs 25.5 crore without actually paying any tax to the govt, leading to loss to the state exchequer.”
IIT-Hyderabad was engaged as a service provider for development of software by the commercial taxes department. The role of the service provider was to perform analytics and generate discrepancy reports based on returns filed by taxpayers registered in Telangana.
How did the fraud come to light?
“Discrepancy was figured in desk audit of Big Leap Technologies and Solutions Private Limited. However, it did not appear in reports generated through the ‘scrutiny module’ developed by IIT-Hyderabad. In order to enquire into the facts, an officer from the department was authorised to visit IIT-Hyderabad. Several gaps were identified, including non-documentation of changes made to the software, changes in applications being done on oral instructions from the then special chief secretary, revenue (CT), additional commissioner (ST), (IT & EIU), SV Kasi Visweswara Rao, and deputy commissioner (ST), STU-1, Hyderabad Rural, Siva Rama Prasad, etc. It was also reported that the scrutiny reports developed did not capture IGST discrepancies, leading to loss of revenue,” Ravi stated.
An explanation was sought from SV Kasi Visweswara Rao, Siva Rama Prasad and Plianto Technologies Private Limited. “The statements given by some of them revealed that the authority was drawn from the instructions issued by the then special chief secretary Somesh Kumar.”
A forensic report indicated the transfer of data of commercial taxes department to a third party without authorization. Telangana States News India: Top News India, States News, States News Headlines, Online State News India, State Politics news
