Labourer in Jharkhand freed in GST 'forgery' issue

An MNREGA labourer is accused of not paying Rs 5 crores after the authorities allotted GST number to a company linked to his Aadhaar and PAN card without any verification.

Ghatshila:In a GST scam case in Jharkhand's Musabani block of Ghatshila subdivision, an MNREGA labourer is accused of not paying Rs 5 crores after the authorities allotted GST number to a company on the basis of his Aadhaar and PAN card without any verification.

The matter came to light when the commerce tax department sent a notice of GST payment of Rs 3.5 crore to the MNREGA labourer Ladum Murmu (48), who earns Rs 198 daily in Musabani.

Once the notice period also lapsed and Ladum did not deposit the money even then the police reached the village and arrested him.

However, after seeing his condition and protest by villagers, Ladum was released and it was found that his Aadhaar card, PAN card and bank passbook were misused to do business by creating a fake company in the name of Messrs SS Steel.

The GST authorities also allotted the GST number (20 AWVPM 0673 QIZV) to the company without carrying out any valid verification.

The company sold steel worth Rs 5,58,05,408 in November-December 2018-19 to Trinetra Traders, Omkar Traders, Trinath Enterprises, Alam Metal Store, Sindhuja Steel and Subhadra through a total of 87 e-way bills for which GST wasn't paid.

In lieu of this, the department sent a notice to the owner of the said company.

In 2018, Ladum's nephew Baila Murmu had said that the government would deposit Rs 2000 every month in his account for which he would have to submit the co-operative bank passbook, Aadhaar card and PAN card.

Ladum gave Baila the documents, which Baila gave to his son-in-law Sunaram Hembram. Sunaram further gave them to Sushant Kumar and then nobody knows where the documents went.

No money was credited to Ladum's account, but in September last year, the Commercial Tax Officer visited him and asked to pay a fine of 3.5 crores rupees.

When he failed to pay up, a case was registered at Musabani police station under Section 70 of the GST Act and section of IPC on the complaint of Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes Kanchan Barwa.

Ladum was called to the GST court of Jamshedpur where his statement was recorded and he was asked 7 questions about the company. He denied knowing the company and the transaction.

Ladum who stays with his son requested the court for forgiveness.