2 held as 150 fleece I-T dept of Rs 2 crore, more arrests likely

LUDHIANA: A day after the income tax department busted the fraudulent IT refund scam, 2 persons, tax practitioner Ashish Aggarwal, the kingpin of the scam and his accomplice Kulwant Singh, a private data entry operator at the IT department, were arrested on the complaint of IT department officials.
The department has learnt that in most of the over 300 refund cases involving fraudulent refund of Rs 2 crore, the assesses were well aware of the refund being applied in their names. Sources said the accused paid them commission to allow them to apply for refunds in their names.

Highly placed sources in the department said a probe has been launched to ascertain the names and addresses of all those who fleeced the department and they too will be booked under similar charges. Sources said 150 PAN holders may have given their consent to the accused for the scam.

Sources said the data entry operator, a contractual employee, worked in range-7 of the department for the past some time and he facilitated fraudulent refunds applied by Aggarwal by first transferring the account of the assesse in his ward and rectifying his old Income Tax Return (ITR) and then applying for IT refund of smaller amounts (below Rs 1 lakh). This was to make sure no prior approval was needed from senior IT officials.

Meanwhile, the survey conducted on the premises owned by Ashish Aggarwal continued till Thursday afternoon. Senior IT officials, under instructions from chief commissioner of income tax Binay K Jha, questioned Ashish Aggarwal and Kulwant Singh, besides collecting incriminating evidence from the premises. Both the accused were arrested after this.

As per the IT department investigation, the accused used to operate in one ward of the income tax department. After taking personal details of the assesse, including PAN card number and bank account details, they used to change the address of the assesse. In almost all cases, they gave Ashish Aggarwal's address. Once the refund order arrived at his address, he would contact the assesse and hand over the pay order after charging his cut.

However, sources also said there are a few cases in which the assesses were not aware of the wrongdoings taking place in their name. Details of the number and identity of such people are not clear yet. It is also to be seen how the accused got the pay order refunded in such cases.

An FIR under sections 420,467,468,471 and 120 B (All non bailable) has been registered by division number 2 under instructions from ACP Central Mandeep Singh and both the accused have been arrested.

Giving more information, ACP said, “Acting on the complaint of fraud lodged by Income Tax department two persons, namely Ashish Aggarwal and Kulwant Singh were arrested by police officials from division number 2. This case is related to taking Income tax refunds in fraudulent manner and as our investigation progresses further anyone else found beneficiary in this case too will be arrested”