Pune GST office busts tax scam

5/8/2018

PUNE: The Directorate general of GST intelligence (DGGI) , Pune zonal unit, has arrested Shirish Shah (50), a resident of Mumbai, on charges of allegedly managing, operating and controlling 212 shell companies, some of which were used to funnel service tax charges away from government coffers.

As per probe documents released, one of Shah’s 212 companies, M/S Allied Computers International (Asia) ACI Ltd, issued fake invoices of Rs. 70 crore and Rs. 7.30 crore collected as service tax, none of which has been paid to the government.

Intelligence generated by DGGI Pune indicated that M/S ACI, holding a service tax registration number, is a shell company raising tax invoices by charging service tax without providing any service and moreover, these invoices are further used by companies identified as M/S Designtech Systems Ltd and M/s Skillar Enterprise India Private Ltd, for input credit.

As per the investigation, M/S Designtech is part of a tripartite agreement entered to in 2015 with the Andhra Pradesh state skill development corporation, and M /s Siemens Industry Software India Ltd, for setting up and operating skill development centres in Andhra Pradesh.

According to documents, under the contract, Rs. 300 crore was received by S Design Tech. Subsequently Rs. 200 crore was transferred to M/S Skillar by M/S Designtech out of which M/S Skillar mis-utilised invoices raised by M/S ACI, charging service tax to route public funds in an illegal manner.

M/S ACI is a shell company with no office and operated by Shah from an office premise situated at Dhobi Talao in Mumbai. “He had entire control over issuing tax invoices and had also deposited money in the bank account of M/S ACI from the respective companies,” the documents state. Shah had been on the radar of IT sleuths for some time, and is considered to be a master financial criminal.

The investigation was carried out by Ajitkumar Karthikeyan, senior intelligence officer, and Ajit Limaye and Kundan Pratap, intelligence officers of DGGI, under the guidance of Vaishali Patange, Deputy Director, DGGI, Pune unit.