A Gujarat court has rejected the bail plea of journalist Mahesh Langa in a case concerning an alleged Goods and Services Tax fraud, reported Bar and Bench on Wednesday.
While denying bail to Langa on Friday, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Manish V Chauhan said that the journalist had prima facie conspired with others to evade income tax and Goods and Services Tax.
Langa works for The Hindu in Ahmedabad.
The court said that, according to an investigation, Langa was directly involved in transactions worth Rs 44 crore through a company called Dhruvi Enterprises.
The transactions seemed to have been carried out to facilitate bogus input tax credits, resulting in loss of crores of rupees to the public exchequer, the court claimed.
“After reading the case papers and the objections presented, the accused Maheshdan Prabhudan Langa along with the co-accused formed a criminal conspiracy against the Income Tax and GST with a firm named Dhruvi Enterprises as the manager of Paschan Saru Dhruvi Enterprises,” the court said in its order.
“On perusal of the case papers it is found during the investigation that the applicant/accused in this case has played an active role in the crime,” the court added. “The investigation is ongoing. There is a possibility of tampering with evidence.”
The police have alleged that Dhruvi Enterprises created six bogus firms using a single Permanent Account Number to fraudulently receive input tax credit.
After his arrest on October 7, Langa filed a plea in the Gujarat High Court challenging the magistrate’s remand order but withdrew the petition on October 14.
The journalist has since been implicated in two additional cases.
On Tuesday, the police booked Lanha on charges of allegedly cheating a businessman in Ahmedabad.
The complainant, Pranay Shah, who runs an advertising firm, said that Langa allegedly offered to help publish “positive news” about him by leveraging his political and bureaucratic contacts.
The police registered the second case against Langa on October 22 for allegedly possessing confidential government documents pertaining to the Gujarat Maritime Board. The documents were recovered from him during his arrest in the first case.
Press bodies have urged the police to withdraw the case against Langa for allegedly possessing confidential government documents.
A joint statement by the Indian Women’s Press Corps, Press Association, Delhi Union of Journalists and Kerala Union of Working Journalists issued through the Press Club of India on Monday noted that journalists are likely to possess all kinds of documents from various sources as part of their commitment to serving the public interest.
The Editors Guild of India also issued a statement on Monday saying it had noted with concern the “worrisome” action against Langa.
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