The Hindu : New Delhi News : I-T refunds fraud, dozen arrested

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

I-T refunds fraud, dozen arrested

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, FEB. 22. In one of the biggest frauds involving income tax refunds in the Capital, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi police Crime Branch has arrested a dozen people for encashment of refund challans worth over Rs. 50 lakhs through bogus bank accounts opened in collusion with bank officials against fake income tax returns. More arrests are likely.

The scam came to light after an income tax official found that a person named Jastinder Singh had filed returns in different wards across the Capital. The residential address provided by him was found to be fake and so were the details on which he opened a bank account through which he cashed refunds totalling Rs. 1.65 lakhs. Later, three more such complaints were received by the EOW from other wards.

Subsequently, a team led by the Assistant Commissioner of Police, M.K. Sharma, scanned the income tax documents and came across cases in which the account holders were untraceable. However, the police were able to trace some genuine accounts, which led them to Anil Srivastava, after they found that he had made a payment of Rs. 90,000 to buy a property through a bogus account in the Kasturba Gandhi Marg branch of State Bank of India. The account was in the name of his father, K.B. Srivastava, who had died two years ago.

During interrogation, Anil disclosed that he came to Delhi from Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and, posing as a chartered accountant, started liaison work with the Sales Tax and Income Tax departments and DDA. Initially, he filed returns for his clients and arranged bank loans for them. In that process, he came close to the officials of these departments. Meanwhile, he came in touch with Ramesh Pandey, who earlier ran a chemist's shop at Yusuf Sarai. The duo allegedly conspired to obtain refunds from the Income Tax Department against fake returns.

They allegedly submitted forged Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) certificates and with the help of income tax employees managed to obtain the refunds apparently by hand, whereas refunds are sent to applicants by registered post. After getting the refund challans, the duo opened accounts in UCO Bank, Central Bank of India and Union Bank of India on fake names, in which they used the photographs of their employees.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Prabhakar, said most of these forms were filled by Anil's employee, Rakesh, while Anil allegedly forged the signatures of account holders so that he could withdraw the money himself.

In some cases, accounts were opened without any photographs, while in some a woman living in Dubai was shown to have introduced the applicants. Against such favours, Anil used to pay mobile phone bills of certain bank employees through these bogus accounts. The bank officials allegedly also helped Anil operate his dead father's account. The police found that the other accused, Ramesh, had obtained a loan of Rs. 20 lakhs from the Central Bank of India on forged sale-deed of a Dwarka-based property belonging to another accused, Kamlesh Pathak, whose husband was also involved in the fraud. On that sale-deed, Ramesh had already obtained a loan from Syndicate Bank.

On the basis of the evidence, the police arrested Anil, Ramesh, Kamlesh and her husband, Satish. At their instance, they arrested a bank employee, R.S. Sharma, his son, Yogesh, and bank employees, Kuldeep Singh, Arun Srivastava and Rakesh Dewan. Their other accomplices, Rakesh, S.N. Kesari and Hukam Singh Bisht, have also been arrested. The police said the income tax staff and some other bank officials involved in the racket would be arrested soon.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi

News Update

Stories in this Section