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GURUGRAM: A Gurugram court has directed to that a special investigation team (SIT) be formed to probe the role of excise department officials allegedly involved in GST frauds. The court said the SIT would have in it a senior police officer, excise and taxation experts and an officer capable of detecting cyber frauds.

The directive came on a petition alleging that some employees of the excise department had been sharing passwords and other details to help people to claim input tax credit fraudulently. The order to form an SIT was passed on Saturday by district and sessions judge RK Sondhi. The court rejected the bail plea of Hanish Taluja (27), an employee of the excise and taxation department and an accused in the GST fraud. The irregularity had been exposed by a Gurugram police team towards the end of 2016. Six persons, including a chartered accountant, a computer operator and a taxation official, were arrested.

The excise department argued in court that an inquiry had found serious lapses on the part of four officials who were sharing passwords and issuing bogus registration certificates. The department said the four accused never thought of protecting their passwords, which indicated that they knew that the secret codes were being misused.

It has been alleged that the passwords were being misused to issue registration certificates for bogus companies. The same companies were used for claiming input credit tax to the tune of Rs 44 crore after showing fraudulent transactions.

The police sought registration of criminal cases against anyone found guilty of orchestrating the fraud and argued that further inquiry was required to find out if more such people are involved. The court then directed the formation of the SIT.

Public prosecutor Anurag Hooda said initial inquiry had already found that the fraud had been committed in connivance with some excise department employees. “The court has directed that an SIT be formed for further investigation by senior officers,” Hooda said, adding that the case had been registered at Udyog Vihar police station in August 2016.

