Moonak Court Sentences Trader to Three-Year Jail for Rs 6.28 Crore GST Billing Fraud

A court in Moonak has sentenced an iron and steel trader to three years in jail for committing a Rs 6.28-crore GST billing fraud. The trader, Subhash Chander, who owns Ganapati Motors, was also fined Rs 10,000 by Judicial Magistrate First Class Ankita Gupta after a trial that lasted more than five years.

The case began on July 11, 2019, when the Punjab State Tax Department started an investigation into suspected tax evasion by some firms in the Khanauri area. During the inquiry, officials found that Subhash Chander had wrongfully claimed GST Input Tax Credit (ITC) by creating fake invoices from non-existent firms based in Delhi. These invoices showed transactions on paper, but no actual goods were delivered.

According to the investigation, the trader made transactions worth more than Rs 100 crore using these fake bills and evaded GST of Rs 6,28,20,790. The court noted that not a single rupee of this tax was deposited with the government.

The court said, “Taxation is a way by which the government earns money to provide better infrastructure for the public of the country. People, like the present accused, for their own greed, commit fraud on the department and scavenge the limited resources of the government, which would eventually be used for the development of society and the country at large. The greed of man when crosses such an extent that he cheats his own country and its economy of rightful dues shows that such a person is beyond reformation”.

The court also ordered the trader to pay back Rs 6,28,20,790 to the GST department of the Punjab government, which represents the wrongful GST credit he had claimed.