Excise officials claim Gabria asked them to ‘keep off’ defaulter business houses

Notably,many big business houses from Ludhiana,Fatehgarh Sahib,Patiala and Jalandhar are said to be involved in what is now being termed as the VAT scam. The Excise department had traced fake bills to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore last year.

Nearly 500 notices have been issued,13 FIRs registered and six people were arrested in the case.

It was said that some steel and iron merchants claimed VAT refunds or adjustments by producing a fake input tax credit. Chief Minister Punjab Parkash Singh Badal had also given a go-ahead to the department to take action against the defaulters.

The magnitude of the scam can be gauged from the fact that a consortium of seven firms had faked bills worth Rs 2,500 crore. A majority of the companies are from Ludhiana and Fatehgarh Sahib.

Gabria,along with 50 businessmen,called on two Excise officers handling the VAT scam for a meeting on Monday morning. Gabria’s personal assistant Ravinder Verma confirmed that a meeting did take place,but refused to reveal the proceedings of the meeting.

On the condition of anonymity,an Excise official said: “We were told that any kind of action in the case can prove costly for us in the future. We do not want to say much as we do not want to get into any kind of clash with the minister or his men. We want to do our work,which is for the state’s benefit and not ours.”

Punjab Excise and Taxation Commissioner A Venu Parsad said he was aware of the matter. “Despite everything and anything,we will continue to do our work.”

When contacted,Minister Hira Singh Gabria denied the allegations. “There are certain issues. Officers also act high-handedly at times and we have formed a five-member committee of businessmen,which will deal with officials from now on,” he said.

Asked whether officials were threatened,Gabria said: “Nothing like this happened and I would not let any such thing happen in my presence.”