Mandi Gobingarh, April 1: A local court has sentenced two excise and taxation officers (ETOs) to three years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) for their involvement in helping the owner of M/S Gupta Iron and Steel Industry in Mandi Gobindgarh fraudulently obtain a Sales Tax Number and Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) in 2005.
Special vigilance court judge Manjot Kaur also handed a three-year sentence to Vikas Mittal, the firm’s owner, for committing forgery. The court found Mittal guilty under Sections 465, 468, 471, and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), while the excise officers, SK Aggarwal and Manjit Singh, were convicted under Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The accused were booked by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau in 2006 under multiple sections of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
According to the Vigilance Bureau’s report, Mittal submitted forged documents to the excise department’s Mandi Gobindgarh office to obtain the registration and issuance of a Sales Tax Number and TIN for his firm. Manjit Singh, an ETO, approved the application despite discrepancies, including a non-existent residential address provided by Mittal.
Following suspicions of significant tax evasion, the excise department assigned ETO SK Aggarwal to investigate the firm’s operations and its suspected large-scale tax evasion in 2005-06, particularly regarding goods sold and purchased outside the state.
