Steel firm owner accused of Rs 7 cr tax evasion arrested

An owner of an iron and steel maker firm, who had allegedly unleashed dogs on excise sleuths during their searches, has been arrested here for alleged evasion of excise duty to the tune of about Rs seven crore.
Following investigations, Vaibhav Goel, one of the directors of M/s Trikoot Iron and Steel Casting Ltd, Muzaffarnagar, was arrested by officials of Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) late last week, official sources said here today.
Goel, who had allegedly let loose dogs on the DGCEI officials who had gone to conduct searches at his residence and official premises of the firm last month, has been sent to judicial custody till August 16, they said.

Several incriminating documents, pen-drives, hard disc containing incriminating data were recovered during the searches, the sources said.
The sleuths had faced severe resistance at some of the places during the course of the operation. One of the officers of the DGCEI was injured by the dog allegedly let loose by Goel, they said, adding that following which an FIR was also registered at a police station in Muzaffarnagar. The officers were attacked by two dogs during the searches.
"After scrutiny of accounts, it was found that the company has allegedly evaded excise duty to the tune of Rs seven crore during the month of June only. The officials found him involved in the evasion and arrested him," sources said.

Prima facie, the alleged excise duty evasion is of about Rs 40 crore, they said.

During the searches, the sleuths also found a secret office being operated from a kitchen of the director's residence.
The company was allegedly found to be evading excise duty by showing less sales and through other fraudulent means. The data was also being stored in computers installed in secret office being operated from kitchen and other rooms of the director's residence, the sources said.
These computers were connected with well concealed wires and select employees of the businessman were making entry of both accounted and unaccounted sales made by the factory on daily basis, they said.

The tax officials were also able to retrieve data from the hard discs of these computers which were well secured and password protected.
The director of the company had admitted to the tax liability and had deposited Rs one crore on the spot, they added.