Raipur, Apr 1 (PTI) The Central GST Commissionerate here has arrested the owner of a private firm for alleged tax evasion after conducting a search operation at his premises, during which it recovered fake bills collectively worth over Rs 31 crore, an senior official said.

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Based on a tip-off that Raipur-based Sainath Enterprises was involved in large-scale evasion of Goods and Services Tax (GST) by way of availing inadmissible input tax credit from fake and non-existent entities without actual receipt of the goods, the officials of the CGST, Raipur carried out a search at the premises of its proprietor Basudev Mittal.

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Several incriminating documents were also seized during the search, he said on Thursday.

"The investigation revealed that the firm was arranging fake invoices and taking input credit thereon from the web of a number of fictitious firms operating out of Odisha. Total fake bills of over Rs 31 crore involving GST of Rs 5.69 crore were unearthed," the official said.

The offence committed by Mittal, who is sole beneficiary of such transaction, is punishable under Section 132 (l)(l)(i) of the CGST Act, 2017, and he was arrested on Wednesday, the official said, adding that the accused was produced in a local court here on Thursday and the court sent him to 14-day judicial custody.

Following his arrest, Mittal deposited tax amounting to Rs 76 lakh by way of GST challan, the official added.

This is the sixth arrest done by CGST Raipur Commissionerate.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)