Excise official arrested by DRI in Rs 100 crore fraud case

A Central Excise Superintendent has been arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials for his alleged involvement in facilitating some export merchants in acquiring Duty Free Import Authorization (DFIA) licenses worth more than Rs 100 crore.
According to a DRI release, J B Jhala, posted as Superintendent of Central Excise for Dhrangadhra range in Surendranagar district was arrested and presented before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate yesterday by the DRI.
The magistrate had remanded Jhala to judicial custody, it said.
The zonal unit of Ahmedabad DRI had lodged a case of DFIA fraud against 'Shree Keshri Exports', registered as a 100 per cent Export Oriented Unit (EOU) based in Rajsitapur village in Dhrangadhra taluka of Surendranagar district.

The case was registered upon a specific input that some exporters had shown exports to this non-operational EOU firm and obtained DFIA licences worth more than Rs 100 crore.
DFIA licenses are issued to allow duty free imports of input material which are used in the manufacturing of export products.

"During the course of the inquiry, some documents pertaining to the fraudulently availed DFIA licences indicated that the invoices under which deemed exports were shown by Shree Keshri Exports, which is not operational, were signed by Excise Superintendent of Dhrangadhra range J B Jhala," the release said.
As per DRI, Jhala has certified receipt of goods which is in gross violation of laid down procedure to check the misuse of 100 per cent EOU Scheme.

DRI alleged that Jhala signed the papers "despite fully knowing that the said EOU was non-operational since beginning. These documents signed by Jhala were instrumental in issuance of DFIA licences worth more than Rs 100 crores," the release said.