GST officer among 7 held in Delhi for forging receipts of

A 54-year-old Goods and Services Tax (GST) officer was arrested in Delhi along with six associates for allegedly forging invoices worth ₹718 crores with the Delhi government’s trade and taxes department in order to receive more than ₹54 crore in refunds, said officials said on Monday.
The Anti-Corruption Branch in Delhi arrested seven people for allegedly running the racket by producing fake invoices and getting GST refunds from the department. The illegal operation, which was running since 2021, was being spearheaded by GST officer Babita Sharma who allegedly sanctioned bogus refunds to six of her associates, according to ACB officials.
Her associates – advocates Raj Singh Saini, Narendra Kumar Saini and Mukesh Saini – were the alleged beneficiaries of the funds and ran fake companies which dealt in export of medicines and medical equipment. The three others arrested included a man who was “running” these bogus firms and two transporters who provided them with fake e-way bills and forged goods receipts. Suspicious activity was noted when Sharma was transferred from one “ward” to another, and more than 50 companies applied for migration to her ward, said ACB chief Madhur Verma.
“Suspecting foul play, a physical verification of these companies was performed and they were found to be non-existent and non-functional. An inquiry was initiated by the additional commissioner of the department and in April, 2023, an FIR was lodged with us,” Verma said.
The team looked at the companies connected to Delhi’s trade and taxes department and discovered that more than 500 non-existent firms were involved in medical export business and had claimed “huge” GST refunds without any apparent business activity.
“The three advocates were zeroed in as they were the owners of 96 of these bogus firms. We recovered receipts of more than ₹54 crore of refunds. All the refunds were sanctioned within 2-3 days of filing. An inquiry was initiated against Sharma and it was found that she along with others have been systematically causing loss to the department,” Verma said.
He said the investigation revealed that the fake firms showed purchases of “thousands of crores” and managed to get invoices of ₹718 crore.
“Few of the forms didn’t have offices, dealers, Aadhaar verification and other documents but were still allowed to operate under Sharma’s ward. We also found that the accused used the help of transporters who received payments for providing fake/forged documents and e-way bills to the advocates,” added Verma.
Another officer at ACB said the accused managed to get ₹6 crore in refunds in less than a year. Other accused managed to show they are exporting medicines worth ₹30 crore (in a year) and claimed GST refunds. The officer added that the accused operated over 1,000 bank accounts for the scam. The account owners were the accused, their family members, their employees etc.
Officials arrested another person Manoj Goyal who was involved in running the firms along with transporters Surjeet Singh and Lalit Kumar who provided the accused with fake e-way bills and forged goods receipts.