New Delhi, Mar 19 (PTI) In a one-of-its-kind search operation, the officials from the Uttarakhand GST investigation department floated multiple firms to establish business links with a dubious company to unearth tax evasion worth over Rs 150 crore.

The GST officials said that it took months to operationalise the whole exercise and win the confidence of the erring company to start business transactions.

"A few months ago, we received information about tax evasion against a Sitarganj-based company, engaged in the business of supplying transformers and allied services.

"Our sources informed us that this company was carrying on sale-purchase in the name of another company, which it shut down long back and was suppressing sales to evade tax," Roshan Lal, Joint Commissioner, Special Investigation Bureau, State Goods & Services Tax, Kumaun Region, said.

The department said that a search and seizure raid was launched at the factory premises of the supplier on March 18, 2026, and after about an 8-hour-long exercise, many documents related to the sales, purchase, goods stock, movement of goods, and financial transactions were seized.

"We deployed our two officials and asked them to register firms and establish business links with this erring company. Some of our officials acted as employees and expressed interest in purchasing their products. While doing so, we realise that this Sitarganj-based firm is misusing the name of its closed firms to suppress tax," another senior official, part of the probe team, added.

It stated that the GST revenue worth Rs 19.83 crore has been deposited by the supplier through different modes of tax payments, cash/credit at the spot late in the night.

"The GST revenue worth approx Rs 20 crore has been recovered and deposited to the GST exchequer during the raid. The GST and other ledgers have been blocked till further analysis and investigation," the official said.

“Since the probe is still on and we are suspecting more players to be part of this racket, we do not want to disclose more about our ongoing operations. We have deployed AI tools and forensic technology to identify its network," he added.

Regarding this operation, Sonika, the Commissioner of Taxes for Uttarakhand, stated that, in line with Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami's zero-tolerance policy towards tax evasion, the State Tax Department is consistently taking firm action against businesses involved in GST evasion.

Commending the efforts of the investigation team, she remarked that this initiative has intensified the crackdown on tax evasion, and she expressed full confidence that this would have a positive impact on GST revenue collection.

Around three years ago, the Uttarakhand GST department had conducted a probe operation in Jaspur (Udham Singh Nagar) using high-tech measures against a big timber racket and unearthed a network of hundreds of fake firms which generated fake invoices to pass on fraudulent Input Tax Credit worth crores. PTI JP DRR