Defaulters told to deposit ₹3,344 crore

The Punjab and Haryana high court was told by the Haryana government on Monday that special assessment and special revision teams set up by the state have created demand of ₹3,344 crore from the defaulters into its investigations of the alleged ₹10,000 crore Value Added Tax (VAT) evasion scam in Haryana.

The information was given during resumed hearing of a plea of Kaithal resident Raghbir Singh and Ajmer (Rajasthan) resident Shiv Sawhney, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the scam. As per the petitioners, it was on their complaints that Haryana lokayukta had handed over the probe to a special investigation team (SIT), headed by then inspector general of police (IGP) Shrikant Jadhav. On the basis of probe in 10 districts, the SIT was able to bring to surface estimated revenue losses of about ₹10,618 crore. The SIT submitted its report in January 2015, recommending CBI probe but the government was dillydallying, the petitioner had alleged.

The government has told court that it has recovered ₹43.99 crore from the defaulters and another ₹1,957.95 crore under Haryana Alternative Tax Compliance Scheme for contractors, a voluntary scheme and appeals are pending in cases with an amount ₹149.86 crore. A total of ₹303.17 crore is still pending for recovery from defaulters, the court was told, adding that 78 FIRs have been registered, including 11 against those whose names had cropped up in the SIT report and probe was underway.

As of action against officials, departmental proceedings have been initiated against 17 officials and a committee has been constituted to fix responsibility. To avoid such a scam in the future, the government has set up a tax research unit to analyse data of tax payers and find defaulters.