The Gujarat Police on Tuesday registered another first information report against journalist Mahesh Langa, for allegedly possessing confidential government documents, The Indian Express reported.
Langa, who works with The Hindu in Ahmedabad, was booked on charges of possessing confidential documents related to the Gujarat Maritime Board, Gandhinagar Superintendent of Police Ravi Teja Vasamsetty said.
The journalist is already in judicial custody in an alleged Goods and Services Tax-related scam. The police have alleged that a company named Dhruvi Enterprise created six firms from a single Permanent Account Number to fraudulently receive input tax credit.
One of the companies named in the first information report, DA Enterprise, is owned by Mahesh Langa’s cousin Manoj Langa. The journalist’s wife is a silent partner in the firm with no rights to conduct transactions or access bank accounts.
Manoj Langa, however, has allegedly claimed that he was instructed by Mahesh Langa to carry out fraudulent transactions.
The journalist’s counsel told an Ahmedabad court earlier this month that his client was neither a director nor a promoter of the company, and that the police had not found any transactions directly tying him to the alleged scam.
Mahesh Langa and three others were arrested after the Crime Branch, Economic Offences Wing and Special Operations Group of the Gujarat Police raided 14 locations in the state on October 7.
On Tuesday, unidentified police officers told The Indian Express that the documents related to the Gujarat Maritime Board were recovered from Langa’s possession during his arrest in the previous matter.
The police also conducted searches and inquiries at the office of the maritime board to locate the source who had allegedly leaked the documents to Langa.
“An FIR was filed against Langa at sector-7 police station for possession of the GMB [Gujarat Maritime Board] documents,” the Gandhinagar superintendent of police said on Tuesday. “Currently, he is the sole accused in the case. We are attempting to find out how he received those documents.”
Five more arrested for alleged GST fraud
Five more persons were arrested on Tuesday by the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch in the Goods and Services Tax-related scam, The Indian Express reported.
The five arrested men were identified as Adil Kadar Khokhar, Kadar alias Navdi Rafiqbhai Khokhar, Akil Anubhai Pathan, Shahrukh Rafiqbhai Rangrej, and Sarfaraz Mustufa Chauhan, Deputy Commissioner of Police Ajit Rajian said. This took the total number of persons arrested in the matter to 13.
Apart from Langa, the others already arrested in the case were Aijaz alias Maldar, Abdulkader alias Bapu, Jyotish Magan Gondaliya, Faizal Munaf Shaikh, Irfan alias Padu Sattar Jethwa, Jignesh Himmatlal Desai and Paresh Pradeep Dodiya.
The allegations
Langa’s arrest came on a complaint by the Central Goods and Services Tax department. The journalist was arrested after 13 firms and their proprietors were booked for an alleged input tax credit fraud. The Indian Express reported.
According to the police, the alleged racket caused a loss to the government exchequer, with the persons accused in the matter availing and passing on bogus input tax credit fraud through fake bills.
More than 220 shell companies were set up on the basis of forged documents that were used in the racket, the FIR said.
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