Controversy over bogus billing in Punjab

By Badish Jindal
The trade and industry of Punjab is badly affected due to the attitude of the Excise & Taxation Department of Punjab. As per the various statements given by the department to the various newspapers, the quantum of bogus billing held in Punjab is more than 20000 crores. But it is indeed shocking that department is denying any bogus billing in the reply of RTI filed by our organization. Further it is very doubtful that even after such a huge illegal bogus billing the department is running from conducting any enquiry by the third party or by some agencies like CBI.
So many times, the various organizations submitted the list of bogus billing companies and tinted officers to the highest authorities but so far no action taken either against any company or against any officer. It is a clear fact that the department goes online in the year 2008 and all the bogus dealers filed their returns online. So without the connivance of the officers such big scams were impossible. Even in the year 2011, our organization approached the ministry of home affairs for CBI enquiry and in reply to that the Director (Vigilance) Excise and Taxation Dept. instead of accepting the facts wrote to our organization to prove the facts of bogus billing held in their concerned department. This clearly shows the involvement of highest officials in this scam.
The department is declaring that the pendency of VAT refunds is merely 300 crores. But this figure is only of the refunds cleared by the department. Whereas even the provision of refund of 75% without any statutory documents such as C-Forms or H-forms is fully ignored by the department. These companies are not allowed to submit their files for the refund process. Even the provision is that the companies can claim the 75% refund after filing the VAT-20 but the department is misinterpreting this clause and the department is even threatening that 75% under this scheme then after a specific period of time the company will not be allowed to claim the balance 25% of the refund which is fully illegal. The tune of such refunds is more than 800 crores which is lying pending from 2011-12 to till date. Further the department deducted the refund with the illegal logic of 4th stage verification. Even this decision of the department was denied by their Tribunal vide Appeal No. 114 dated 30.06.2015. The amount of this deduction will be more than 400 crores. If calculated the total amount of industries fund laying with department, then the amount will cross 1500 crores.
The department due to their connivance with the main accused of bogus billing are not registering any Police cases against such companies. Even the department is not doing the assessment of these companies and instead of recovering the same, they are making the innocent traders and industrialists scape goats. The department is preparing no record of deductions of refunds and collection of amounts and penalties during the scrutiny against 4th stage verification and this process is becoming a great source of income for few black sheeps of the department.
The department recently took an illegal decision of conducting scrutiny of more than 32000 companies as the names were mentioned of these companies on their websites and the concerned officers of the department were allowed to fix cases of these companies for any number of years. As such more than 1.5 lakh cases are processed for scrutiny by the department.
We have filed an RTI with the department demanding the exact figures of deductions made in the refunds and amounts and penalties collected from the companies during their assessments. So that a case can be filed against the department for refund of all such amounts. Further, we are again approaching the Central Bureau of Investigation with all the relevant facts requesting them for ordering an enquiry of the whole scam.
(The author is president of Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association).