Show Cause Notice issued to Gurugram Man lived in Australia for GST Evasion

A 25-year-old Gurugram resident who has been in Australia since 2018, received a show-cause notice from the Income Tax Department for GST evasion.

The notice given to Divyrup Singh Mann via email revealed financial transactions of over Rs.133 crores, leading to the identification of a shell company falsely functioning under his name in Delhi, according to Monday police reports.

Mann, a Wellington Estate resident in DLF Phase-V, Gurugram, moved to Canberra in July 2018 to pursue higher education, according to police. His family in Gurugram was surprised when they received the tax notice on March 31, according to police officers. The notice charged GST evasion for transactions between 2019 and 2021, totalling over Rs.133 crores, according to authorities.

According to officers familiar with the investigation, the shell firm, which was formed at Gulabi Bagh in New Delhi on February 26, 2019, was constructed using Mann’s name and PAN details.

Mann’s father, Pushpinder Singh, began looking into the case after receiving the notice. He realized that the company had been conducting fraudulent financial transactions without his son’s knowledge, according to authorities.

“Mann was neither earning anything nor in India when the company was fraudulently formed and registered,” a senior officer revealed.

The insider further stated that Mann had only been in India for three to four months since moving to Australia in 2018.

Further investigation found that the phone number and email address used to open the shell company did not belong to Mann. The IT department most likely looked for his email address after an earlier notice from 2022 went unanswered. Mann and his father reacted to both warnings in April and informed the IT department about the identity theft.

According to police, the IT department is conducting its own internal investigation into the matter, has dropped the show cause notice, and has cancelled the GST number assigned to the shell corporation formed in Mann’s name.

Investigators said Singh’s complaint to the Gurugram Police Commissioner was turned over to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

Following the preliminary investigation by the EOW, Singh’s charges were deemed to be believable. On Sunday, an FIR was registered at Sushant Lok police station against unidentified suspects under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and 471 (fraudulently forged document or electronic record as genuine) of the IPC.