New Delhi, March 19 In a unique operation, officials from the Uttarakhand GST investigation department established multiple firms to create business links with a dubious company in order to uncover tax evasion worth over ₹150 crore.
The GST officials said that it took months to operationalize the entire exercise and gain the trust of the erring company to begin business transactions.
"A few months ago, we received information about tax evasion against a Sitarganj-based company, which was involved in the business of supplying transformers and related services.
"Our sources informed us that this company was conducting sales and purchases under the name of another company, which it had shut down long ago, and was suppressing sales to evade tax," Roshan Lal, Joint Commissioner, Special Investigation Bureau, State Goods & Services Tax, Kumaun Region, said.
The department said that a search and seizure raid was launched at the premises of the supplier on March 18, 2026, and after about an 8-hour-long operation, many documents related to sales, purchases, goods stock, movement of goods, and financial transactions were seized.
"We deployed our two officials and asked them to register firms and establish business links with this erring company. Some of our officials acted as employees and expressed interest in purchasing their products. While doing so, we realized that this Sitarganj-based firm was misusing the name of its closed firms to evade tax," another senior official, part of the probe team, added.
It stated that the supplier had deposited GST revenue worth ₹19.83 crore through various modes of tax payment, cash/credit at the spot late at night.
"Approximately ₹20 crore worth of GST revenue has been recovered and deposited to the GST exchequer during the raid. The GST and other ledgers have been blocked pending further analysis and investigation," the official said.
"Since the investigation is still ongoing, and we suspect that more players are involved in this racket, we do not want to disclose more about our ongoing operations. We have deployed AI tools and forensic technology to identify its network," he added.
Regarding this operation, Sonika, the Commissioner of Taxes for Uttarakhand, stated that, in line with Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami's zero-tolerance policy towards tax evasion, the State Tax Department is consistently taking firm action against businesses involved in GST evasion.
Commending the efforts of the investigation team, she remarked that this initiative has intensified the crackdown on tax evasion, and she expressed full confidence that it would have a positive impact on GST revenue collection.
Around three years ago, the Uttarakhand GST department had conducted a probe operation in Jaspur (Udham Singh Nagar) using high-tech measures against a big timber racket and unearthed a network of hundreds of fake firms which generated fake invoices to pass on fraudulent Input Tax Credit worth crores.