HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Central Crime Station has booked a case against former chief secretary Somesh Kumar, two higher officials of the commercial tax department and an assistant professor of IIT Hyderabad for their alleged involvement in a ₹1,000 crore GST fraud scam.
Joint Commissioner (CT), Central Computer Wing K Ravi Kanuri filed a complaint on July 26 stating that as many as 75 taxpayers, including major companies like the Telangana State Beverages Corporation Limited, are allegedly involved in this massive scam.
Apart from Somesh Kumar, the official named commercial tax officers S.V. Kasi Visweswara Rao and A. Siva Rama Prasad, IIT-H assistant professor Sobhan Babu and Plianto Technologies as accused in his complaint.
The scam came to light after the commercial tax department first noticed a ₹25.51 crore GST fraud by Big Leap Technologies and Solutions Private Limited. The entity allegedly passed on input tax credit worth ₹25.51 crore “without actually paying any tax to the government,” the complainant said.
When the officials reached out to IIT Hyderabad, which was engaged as service provider for development of software by the department, they reportedly learnt that the concerned authority did not submit proper discrepancy reports.
Further, an officer visited the premises of IIT-H and reported that the operations pertaining to the commercial taxes department were run in the name of Plianto Technologies Private Limited.
The officer also claimed there were “changes in applications being done on Oral instructions from the then Spl. Chief Secretary, Revenue (CT), Additional Commissioner (ST), (IT &EIU), Sri S.V. Kasi Visweswara Rao, and Deputy Commissioner (ST), STU-1, Hyderabad Rural, Sri Siva Rama Prasad etc.”
During the investigation, the commercial tax department officials were reportedly told that the assistant professor of IIT-H Sobhan Babu was part of a WhatsApp group named “Special Initiatives” wherein the accused top officials gave him specific directions.
The department also called for a forensic audit and generated several reports alleging that the accused were involved in masking data pertaining to taxpayers to favour them and cause a loss to the state exchequer.
Based on the complaint, the Central Crime Station registered a case under sections 406, 409 and 120 B of the IPC and section 65 of the IT Act on charges of criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy and tampering with computer source documents.