Mining firm MD arrested for evading Rs 4.7 cr service tax

December 17, 2013

Mining_arrestedNew Delhi, Dec 17: In a first arrest of a service tax defaulter in the northeast, a managing director of a mining firm has been held for allegedly evading this central levy to the tune of about Rs 4.71 crore.

Ashok Jain, Managing Director of M/s Saumya Mining Limited, a registered entity under the Shillong (Meghalaya) Central Excise and Service Tax Commissionerate, was arrested for continued default in tax payment, officials said today.

The firm, engaged in extraction and Coal, Uranium and metalliferous mining, did not offer any comment to phone call and emails requests by PTI.

The company was providing services of mining of minerals, oil or gas services to M/s Lafarge Umiam Mining Pvt Ltd at Shella, East Khasi Hills in Meghalaya, and has been collecting the service tax but failed to pay the amount to the exchequer, the officials said.

During the course of investigation, it was found that the firm (Saumya Mining Ltd) had collected nearly Rs 6.77 crore service tax for the period from April 2012 to October 2013.

Whereas, it paid about Rs 2.06 crore to the government thus short in paying about Rs 4.71 crore, the officials said.

“They are liable to pay interest on the said amount not paid or short paid,” they said.

Jain was responsible for payment of collected service tax to the government. He was arrested from his Kolkata residence on December 10 by a team of officers of Central Excise Commissionerate, Shillong, the officials said.

He has been sent to judicial custody till December 24 by a Chief Judicial Magistrate court in North 24 Parganas in West Bengal.

It is the first arrest of a service tax defaulter in the northeastern region, they said.

An evasion of service tax of Rs 50 lakh and above has now been made a cognisable offence after the passage of current fiscal’s Finance Bill on May 10. Finance Minister P Chidambaram has proposed provisions of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to arrest such offenders in 2013-14 budget, in line with customs and central excise laws.

Earlier, the officials did not have any power to arrest a person for service tax evasion.

A Kolkata-based courier company owner was arrested in August, is the first such arrest in the country, for alleged non-payment of the tax of about Rs 67 lakh.

An offender is punishable with imprisonment of up to seven years for service tax defaults of more than Rs 50 lakh.

The Finance Ministry is also implementing a first of its kind amnesty scheme – Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme (VCES) – for service tax defaulters.

The VCES, which came into effect from May 10, allows a service tax defaulter to pay dues without any penalty or late payment charges. Under the scheme, a person may make a declaration to the designated authority on or before December 31, 2013.

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News Network
June 3,2020

New Delhi, Jun 3: Over 1 lakh scanned copies of Indians' national IDs, including Aadhaar, PAN card and passport, have been put on dark web for sale, cyber intelligence firm Cyble said on Wednesday.

The leaked data seems to have originated from a third party and not from the government system, according to a report by Cyble.

"We came across a non-reputed actor who is currently selling over 1 lakh Indian National IDs on the dark net. With such a low reputation, ideally, we would have skipped this; however, the samples shared by the actor intrigued our interest -- and also the volume. The actor is alleged to have access to over 1 lakh IDs from different places in India," Cyble said.

The personal data leaked by cyber criminals leads to various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage. Many criminals use the personal details in the IDs to win trust of the people over a phone call for fraudulent activities.

Cyber criminals leak personal data of 2.9 cr job-seeking Indians on dark web for free

The Cyble researchers acquired around 1,000 IDs from the seller and confirmed that the scanned IDs belong to Indians.

"Preliminary analysis suggests that the data originated from a third party, and no indication or artefact is indicating that it came from a government system. At this point, Cyble researchers are still investigating this further -- we are hoping to share an update soon," Cyble said.

The scanned ID documents indicate that the data may have been leaked from a company's data base in the segment where they have to comply with 'Know Your Customer' (KYC) norms.

"Cyble researchers have also learned about a surge in KYC and banking scams -- leaks such as this are often used by scammers to target individuals, especially elderlies," Cyble said.

The cyber intelligence firm has recommended people to refrain from sharing personal information especially financial information over phone, e-mail or SMS.

"Regularly monitor your financial transaction, if you notice any suspicious transaction, contact your bank immediately," the company said.

In May, Cyble showed two instances where personal data of 7.65 crore Indians have been put on sale in the dark web. In one instance, the seller claimed to have sourced data of 4.75 crore Indians from online directory Truecaller and in other, the seller claimed to have sourced from job websites.

Truecaller, however, had denied the claim of breach in its database.

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Agencies
February 8,2020

New Delhi, Feb 8: A 26-year-old woman sub-inspector (SI) of the Delhi Police was shot dead near Rohini East Metro station on Friday night, officials said.

The SI, Preeti Ahlawat, was posted in Patparganj Industrial Area Police Station, police said.

A call about the incident was received around 9.30 pm, they said, adding she received gunshot wounds on her head.

"We have identified the suspects and CCTV footage of the area has been collected," said SD Mishra, Additional Commissioner of Police (Rohini).

Three empty cartridges were found from the spot, the officer said, adding a case has been registered and a probe is on.

Personal enmity is suspected to be the reason behind the killing, the officer said.

Ahlawat joined the Delhi Police in 2018.

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Agencies
May 17,2020

Mumbai, May 17: Much on expected lines, Maharashtra, on Sunday, extended the coronavirus lockdown till May 31, in order to control the spread of the virus, under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, the state government said in a statement.

On Sunday afternoon, Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta, in a notification said: "It is further directed that all earlier orders shall be aligned with this order and remain in force up to and inclusive of May 31, 2020. The calibrated phase-wise relaxation or lifting of lockdown orders will be notified in due course."

"Lockdown 3.0 ends today. Lockdown 4.0 will come into effect tomorrow and will be valid till May 31. There will be some relaxations in the fourth phase," he said.

"The green and orange zones will get more relaxations, in terms of starting more services. As of now only essential services are operational, he said.

Maharashtra has recorded 30,706 COVID-19 cases of which 22,479 are active. The death toll is 1135, while 7,088 patients have been discharged after recovery.

In exercise of the powers conferred under Section 2 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1898 and the powers, conferred under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the Chairperson, State Executive Committee, issued direction to extend the lockdown till 31 May 2020 for containment of COVID-19 epidemic in the State and all Departments of Government of Maharashtra shall strictly implement the guidelines issued earlier form time to time, according to the statement.

Over the last two days,  Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray held a series of meetings with his ministerial colleagues, senior leaders including NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and top officials. 

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