Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Goshamahal MLA Raja Singh has written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to transfer the alleged Rs 1000 crore goods and Services Tax (GST) fraud case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The matter came to light after the Central Crime Station (CCS) of the Hyderabad police filed a case against ex-Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar and other officials for the same.
In his letter to Amit Shah, Raja Singh stated that the fraud transpired when Somesh Kumar was Special Chief Secretary (Revenue) during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in Telangana. He alleged that the GST violations continued to take place even after Somesh Kumar was made chief secretary of Telangana later.
The Central Crime Station (CCS) of the Hyderabad police registered a case against former chief secretary Somesh Kumar and two senior officers of the Commercial Taxes department for alleged Goods and Services Tax (GST) violations.
The case was booked on a complaint lodged by the Joint Commissioner (CT), Central Computer Wing, Nampally, Hyderabad, K Ravi Kanuri, on July 26. The FIR also names Plianto Technologies Private Limited and IIT-Hyderabad assistant professor Sobhan Kumar for the alleged GST violations.
During a verification, Commercial Tax Department officials reportedly found 11 cases that were allegedly masked by IIT-Hyderabad. During the inquiry, evasion of over Rs 1,000 crore was reportedly unearthed through fraudulent cases detected in Telangana. The allegations against Somesh Kumar and others include masking of data pertaining to taxpayers, issuing instructions not to cancel fraudulent cases etc.
The Commercial Taxes department had earlier engaged IIT-Hyderabad 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.
