A Faridabad court has denied bail to a 19-year-old boy, who allegedly pulled off a Rs 64-crore fraud on central GST.
Sanket Mittal (19) — who was arrested on May 6 — had used fake bills showing the sale of iPhones and registering bogus firms in the name of his grandmother and house help.
On Saturday, he was refused bail by additional sessions judge Ajay Sharma, who said “as alleged, the applicant (Sanket) is the mastermind behind the entire fraud”. The court, terming the “economic offence” as a separate class, pointed out a regular offence is generally directed towards a particular person or section of society, whereas an economic offence affects and harms society at large by impairing the economic stability and well-being of the nation.
“Looking into the gravity and seriousness of alleged offences and without commenting on the merits of the case, the applicant is not entitled to the grant of regular bail at this stage,” the judge said. Sanket and co-accused Naveen Tayal (34) fraudulently sourced data regarding the sale of iPhones from e-commerce sites to claim input tax credits.
Sanket also produced fake bills to show he transported phones worth Rs 5.9 crore in Haryana Roadways buses.
The accused orchestrated a fictitious trade of iPhones through a dummy company to claim ITC. The company was registered on a forged electricity bill and iPhones worth crores were shown to be transported.
Harpreet Singh, representing CGST, said the company of the accused traded in iPhones and availed ITC from various suppliers to the tune of Rs 60 crore, out of which around Rs 30.4 crore of ITC was availed between Dec 2023 and March 2024, using “goods-less invoices”.
Source #TOI
