Gujarat: Pharma group in GST net over flagged transactions of Rs 115cr - Times of India

Ahmedabad: The State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) department recently detected a major case of GST evasion involving a pharmaceutical group in the city operating through 11 related entities.

Investigators flagged taxable transactions of Rs 114.89 crore and fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) of Rs 20.68 crore.Two persons were arrested and produced before the additional chief judicial magistrate in Ahmedabad, who remanded them to judicial custody for 14 days until Feb 3. The crackdown followed coordinated search operations at 32 premises across 14 locations, largely in and around Ahmedabad. Officials found that several entities functioned from common premises in Makarba, while many declared places of business were either non-functional or existed only on paper, according to the SGST department. Investigators said some group entities amended their GST registrations to include iron and steel/ingots trading, allegedly to facilitate bogus billing. The probe revealed fraudulent availment of ITC through fake invoices and e-way bills, without any actual movement of goods. Using advanced data analytics, including RFID tracking and toll plaza verification, the department determined that the transactions were purely paper-based. Scrutiny of records so far has pegged the evasion well above the Rs 5 crore threshold, which makes the offence cognisable and non-bailable under Section 132 of the CGST and GGST Acts. Officials said further investigation is underway, including scrutiny of seized documents, digital evidence, financial trails, and possible inter-state linkages.