Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has arrested chartered accountant Neeraj Singla, based in Haryana’s Faridabad, for his alleged involvement in a Rs 2.70 crore income tax refund scam, a police official said here on Tuesday.
After producing the accused before a Faridabad magistrate’s court, the EOW brought him to Bhubaneswar on remand.
Singla, a 28-year chartered accountant (intermediate), is one of the main conspirators and beneficiaries of this pan India TDS refund fraud, said the EOW official.
The official informed that he, along with his other associates, runs this scam by submitting forged or fake documents of other companies and thereby, causes a loss of crores of rupees to government exchequer.
During investigation, the EOW found that Singla, in criminal conspiracy with others, forged the TDS challan/return filed by IAMO Solution Pvt Ltd during the financial year 2020-21 for Rs 2.70 crore, and the amount has been credited in the PAN of 32 taxpayers.
A substantial amount of the refund was diverted to the personal account of the accused and also to the accounts of his firms, All India Transport Services, CKS Acoustics and GDS Associates. Besides, some amounts have been diverted to the accounts of some other firms which are ultimately managed by this accused, the official said.
Usually, the returns of IAMO Solution Pvt. Ltd. are generally filed at Bhubaneswar. However, this particular return has been filed at New Delhi, from which the IT department officials detected the fraud.
The accused is the part of an organised racket defrauding the government exchequer by making false claim for TDS refund by using the forged TDS challan. This is the first arrest in this case and effort is on to arrest other accused persons, the EOW official added.
–IANS