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Ex Telangana chief secretary booked in GST scam
The Hyderabad Central Crime police registered a case against former Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar and two senior officials of the state commercial taxes department in connection with an alleged ₹1,000 crore Goods and Services Tax (GST) scam.
The Hyderabad Central Crime police registered a case against former Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar and two senior officials of the state commercial taxes department in connection with an alleged ₹1,000 crore Goods and Services Tax (GST) scam.
The first information report (FIR) was registered on July 26, based on a complaint lodged by joint commissioner of commercial taxes, K Ravi Kanuri. Along with Somesh Kumar, additional commissioner (sales tax) S V Kasi Visweshara Rao and deputy commissioner (sales tax) A Siva Rama Prasad was named in the FIR, a copy of which was reviewed by HT
The FIR also named assistant professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H) Sobhan Babu and software firm Plianto Technologies as accused in the case. “The case was registered under Section 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code, besides Section 65 of IT Act,” Hyderabad CCS sub-inspector of police J Jeetya Naik said.
According to the FIR, the accused indulged in various means of fraud such as masking of data pertaining to taxpayers, issuing instructions not to cancel fraudulent cases, estimating the Integrated GST (IGST) loss and still not incorporating the IGST head in the notices issued and making the proprietary data pertaining to the Commercial Taxes department available to a third party.
The alleged scam was detected during an audit by the commercial taxes department, indicating discrepancies in the tax returns filed by “Big Leap Technologies and Solutions Private Limited,” which was engaged in manpower supplies. The company has been accused of passing on Input Tax Credit (ITC) without making the corresponding tax payments, resulting in a significant loss to the State exchequer.
The FIR further said IIT-H was engaged as a service provider to develop a software for analytics and discrepancy reports-based on tax returns filed by goods and service taxpayers in Telangana. Investigations revealed that several changes were made in the software on instructions from senior officials, including Somesh Kumar, through a WhatsApp group by name “Special Initiatives,” which included the other accused in the case.
During the investigation, the accused admitted that the WhatsApp group operated under the supervision of Somesh Kumar and it had been inactive since December 2022. But the investigation revealed that it was active up to February 2024. “The accused also furnished the WhatsApp chat history, which revealed that certain reports were generated estimating IGST loss and instructions were issued not to cancel registrations even in fraud cases,” the FIR said.
A forensic study was conducted on the entire operations and it was revealed that the proprietary data of the commercial department was transferred to a third party without any authorization, besides changing the jurisdiction of taxpayers without authority, thereby favouring the taxpayers against whom advance rulings were issued with a favourable disposition, it added.
The forensic report revealed that on preliminary verification of 11 cases which were masked by IIT-Hyderabad, including that of Telangana state beverages corporation, evasion of more than ₹400 crores was identified. “Furthermore, evasion of more than ₹1,000 crore was unearthed through fraudulent cases detected in the state,” the FIR said.
Somesh Kumar could not be reached for his comment.
