Jharkhand liquor scam: After arrest of businessman, Opp demands cancellation of ambulance tender process
'The director of Sumeet Facilities has been arrested by Jharkhand police. We have been alleging for over a year that he is a part of over Rs 6,000-crore ambulance scam in the state. We raised the issue multiple times but the government neglected it. We will surely bring out more evidence, but as of now, it is important that the tender is stayed,' said NCP-SP MLA Rohit Pawar.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Friday accused the Maharashtra government of committing an 'ambulance scam' of Rs 800 crore, and claimed the money involved was diverted to a foundation run by Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde, a charge rejected by the ruling party.
Raut said a tender was floated by the state government for procurement of ambulances and its contract was awarded to a firm run by a close aide of Shrikant Shinde, son of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. 'The probe will bring out how much money has gone to a certain foundation for the election. It is clear that the present Maharashtra government needs clean up,' said Raut.
Earlier this week, Salunkhe was arrested by Jharkhand police in an alleged Jharkhand liquor scam. Salunkhe is an 11th arrest in this case and he is said to be close to Chhattisgarh businessman Siddharth Singhania, who is already under arrest.
In Maharashtra, Sumeet Facilities was given a tender to run ambulances (108 helpline) for the next 10 years along with BVG group. The tender was issued in the previous state government led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the Public Health minister was Tanaji Sawant. The Opposition had then alleged that the tender was issued at triple rates and extended undue benefits to the contractors. However, state Industries Minister and Shiv Sena leader Uday Samant rejected the allegations levelled by Raut.
'The charges have no basis. Shrikant Shinde has proved his worth as a part of the (Operation Sindoor) delegation (to countries which was led by several MPs including Shrikant Shinde). Maharashtra's people will not attach any value to such allegations,' the minister said.
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Indian Express
a few seconds ago
- Indian Express
As the economy grows, so would tax collection; hopeful of meeting FY26 target: CBDT Chairman Ravi Agrawal
The net direct tax collections may have slowed down, but the Income Tax Department is 'comfortable and hopeful' of meeting the target for the ongoing financial year 2025-26, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Ravi Agrawal said. In an interview with Aanchal Magazine, the CBDT Chairman listed several measures including the various 'nudge' campaigns being taken by the Department to boost compliance that has already resulted in filing of over 1.1 crore updated returns and collections of over Rs 11,000 crore. However, there is scope for further increase in the number of returns filed by taxpayers. Edited excerpts: There is a moderation in direct tax collections. Till July 10, it was 1.3 per cent down year-on-year. Is it because of the income tax benefits given in the Budget? How are you assessing the trend vis-a-vis the target? When this overall net tax collection (budget estimate) was given to us, at that point, this element (income tax cut) was also factored in while arriving at the figure and while estimating the tax buoyancy, this was factored in. We are hopeful that it will be done. So far as the reduction is concerned, that was primarily attributable to higher refunds outgo. Also, the fact that if you compare July last year versus July this year, the difference is that the due date for filing the return was July 31, and self-assessment tax was also coming. Since the due date has been shifted, that collection to that extent has basically taken a hit to that extent. But then, going forward, we feel that as the economy grows, so would the tax collection because ultimately taxes are derivative of economic growth. So, economic growth, and then better tax administration, would definitely yield. We are comfortable and hopeful of meeting the target. How is the Income Tax Department making use of digital technologies to boost compliance? On an annual basis, the department captures around 650 crore transactions data from different sources. These transactions are collated, and for about 40 crore PANs, Annual Information Statements (AIS) are generated. This has the data of your TDS, tax payment, any transactions that have been done with different parties, maybe immobile property, or shares or mutual funds or any other. That is reflected on the portal online that is available to the taxpayers. And it's not only available to the taxpayers, they are seeing it, which is an interesting statistic, to me it was very interesting. If you see in FY 2024-25, about 7.42 crore taxpayers actually saw their AIS. And the number of times they actually visited, on an average, if we see, it's about three and a half times. That means the visits to the AIS module of ours was 24 crore times. The point I'm trying to make is that one, you collate this information, this information is corresponding to more than 40 crore taxpayers and more than 7.5 crore taxpayers actually see this multiple times. This becomes a reference point basically for the taxpayer to see their ledger, take a call, what are the taxes to be paid like advance tax and all, whether it has to be paid or not and the return that has to be filed, what is the income that has to be reflected, which means that there is a wide acceptability of the information and the ledger in the form of AIS that is being shown to the taxpayer. It also reflects their confidence in the information that is being shown. 9 crore people are filing the returns and you have more than about 40 crore people in whose case this AIS has been updated. So therefore we can say that yes, there is a scope for further increase in the number of returns that have been filed. What is the role of AI in such analysis? In that context, now we come to what is the role of AI? So, one is, who ought to file the return is not filing. You have this data. Based on that, you can come up with potential cases and then correspond with them electronically. So whatever coordinates you have, you can inform. The second component is whosoever is filing the return, whether a correct return has been filed or not. In case, there is an obvious gap or something which needs to be flagged and from the taxpayer nudge him towards better compliance, and right compliance. And the third component is: if you find that the taxpayer is repeatedly committing a mistake, can there be a case of a harder nudge? So these are components of tax administration that we are working on and where AI is helping. Because AI is then raising red flags in all these transactions and saying: okay, this maybe you would like to consider. And based on that we do a ABC sort of analysis, the numbers are huge…every year some 9 crore people would file returns and then you have to do that analysis. This is the extent and volume of e-governance in the tax department. The direct tax department is huge and if you see the profile of the taxpayer, that spectrum is also really very very wide wherein on one hand, you have a technologically-challenged taxpayer to a very, very matured taxpayer who is very, very technology savvy. So you have to build a system to make sure that the wide spectrum of people are able to see and find value with it. We have seen on the indirect tax side also, like for GST, a move towards capturing the unregistered persons. Is there a similar move from the direct tax side to expand the tax net to the ones who are not filing returns? Basically, what has to be seen is that the taxpayers' base is also increasing. And also the number of people who are filing the returns are also increasing. More and more awareness once it comes, naturally the compliance will go up. So I would not put this number that all these 40 crore people were supposed to file the return and they ought to be our taxpayer. No, not that. But, yes, there is a scope for improvement. And then how do we nudge the taxpayer? How do we prompt the taxpayer to come look at their transactions and then if there is a requirement of filing a return, the person would. I think the awareness is there all across, the communication is also fast, so, by and large, now the taxpayer is also aware about the obligations. It's not that the taxpayer is not aware about it. They are taking that call. And once more and more the data gets matured and it gets populated and you are able to reflect it online, people will take care. Especially, younger generation. How is the Tax Department flagging these gaps to the taxpayers? Our systems create a 360-degree profile of taxpayers' financial transactions and flag any inconsistencies between their declared income and their financial activities. The in-house 'Project INSIGHT', uses advanced data analytics to collate information from various sources, including bank reports, financial institutions, sub-registrars of properties etc. The Department proactively nudges taxpayers suspected of making wrong claims or omissions to update their returns and pay the correct tax. The success of this approach is visible in the outcome of the 'nudge' campaigns. In the Foreign Income and Assets Nudge Campaign, based on matching data received under automatic exchange of information, 19,501 taxpayers were nudged. This resulted in 62 per cent of them revising their returns, and a total of 30,161 taxpayers declared foreign assets worth Rs 29,208 crores and foreign income of Rs 1,089 crore during the campaign period. For false claims, data analytics identified over Rs 9,000 crore in excess deductions claimed under Section 80GGC. Nudging taxpayers through SMS and emails led to a reduction of Rs 963 crore in deductions and the payment of Rs 409.50 crore in additional taxes as of June 18, 2025. The Virtual Digital Assets Nudge Campaign is also ongoing, wherein the taxpayers are being nudged through SMS and e-mail to revisit claims made in ITRs related to TDS under Section 194S versus Schedule VDA filings. The updated return facility (ITR-U) has seen significant success. As of June 18, 2025, a total of 8,892,395 updated ITRs have been filed, generating Rs 9577.06 crore in additional taxes. Overall, over 1.1 crore updated returns have been filed, collecting more than Rs 11,000 crore. By proactively providing taxpayers with information about their financial transactions, we encourage voluntary compliance. How is the Department communicating with the taxpayers? We are communicating with non-filers…there is an ABC analysis that we do to find which people have entered into larger transactions, and who are not filing. Maybe a person had filed earlier in the earlier year, but has chosen not to file this year. So then you can identify those people and try to also see rational from our end through AI. What could be the reason that this guy has not filed now. For example, the person may have entered into an immovable property transaction in one year, and subsequently, it may not be so. It may be something like that the income does not fall above the threshold. You see all those cases, see the high-end cases and then correspond with them through emails in the database or from other data sources. Recently, there were search operations at 150 locations. Was it a similar exercise? This was basically an exercise in that direction. The taxpayer reports certain income, and while calculating their income, reports certain exemptions or deductions which are taken on face value and the system processes. But what we found through AI was that there were gaps, and they were really patterns that emerged, which reflected that the deductions and the exemptions that were claimed were not the correct deductions/exemptions. So, therefore, our pan-India exercise was undertaken to also flag and bring home the point that while we trust the taxpayer, but then at the same time, incorrect claims of deductions and exemptions are not acceptable, and we have not actually gone to the taxpayer per se. We have gone to the intermediary or the facilitator who is misguiding the taxpayer and identify those people. Those could be professionals or intermediaries. Through those, more than 1.5 lakh PANs have been identified. The exercise is still going on. At times, what happens is that the intermediaries give false promises of refunds, and potentially the taxpayer may not be aware of what is being filed. So one has to be cautious about it because it has implications. Since it is an end-to-end, e-enabled service that the tax department is providing, unless the taxpayer gives us the right coordinates of email and mobile, it becomes really very difficult for the tax department to correspond with the taxpayer. If an email of an intermediary is given, or a temporary email of an intermediary is given, then naturally the correspondence would go or the letter would go to that very email which is not being seen by anyone, and therefore, the taxpayer ultimately takes a hit. Like, we are committed to providing refunds as soon as possible. The average time for refunds is 17 days now (38 days in 2020-21) after returns are filed. But how do we give it unless, until the taxpayer actually gives the right coordinates. How is the Tax Department selecting cases for scrutiny? The Computer Assisted Scrutiny Selection (CASS) is a technology-driven system used by the Income Tax Department to select income tax returns for scrutiny, aiming to ensure efficiency, transparency, and objectivity. The CASS risk rules and selection parameters are regularly reviewed and updated to adapt to evolving tax evasion patterns, compliance behaviors, and policy changes. This includes incorporating new data sources like enhanced TDS and SFT reporting for more precise risk assessments. Approximately 0.3 per cent of all income tax returns filed annually are selected for scrutiny, including cases chosen under CASS and other mechanisms like reopening. The proportion specifically selected under CASS typically ranges from 0.05-0.2 per cent of total annual returns filed. For FY 2024-25, about 2.5 lakh cases were selected for scrutiny, representing only about 0.29 per cent of total ITR filers. The Department operates on a 'Trust First and Scrutinise Later' philosophy, focusing on high-risk cases rather than random selection. You mentioned email addresses being incorrect or temporary. Apart from electronic communication, is there any other method of communication which the tax department is exploring since PAN is Aadhaar linked and you can go back to check addresses? No, we would prefer only an e-route. One, that is trackable also. There's an audit to it also. And, ultimately overall you see that it makes our service fast. Look at the volumes. What we would encourage is correspondence through e-mails. The Select Committee has submitted its report on the new Income Tax Bill. There were a lot of concerns raised by digital rights activists about privacy about the storage of data which the tax department would be accessing during an investigation. Say, there is personal or privileged communication between family members or doctors/lawyers. How will the income tax department ensure that that trust is not breached or misused during a probe? First, from a regulatory point of view, statutory permissions are there which mandate the tax department to actually not part with the data in an unauthorised manner. It's a legal obligation. Having said that, practically, in practice, how are we going to go about it? We have put in place a mechanism where this information or this data is scrutinised in a sanitised environment by authorised people. And also, the data which gets raised but which pertains to the privacy domain, is redacted and only the relevant data is investigated. We are also now coming up, we are in the process of defining procedures wherein these things could be made more tight to take care of a taxpayer. It is a genuine concern of the taxpayer. But, then you see, how do you investigate? There's a mobile, there is a personal chat also here, there's a financial transaction also. So, say, it's WhatsApp, it's both. You got to maintain the evidentiary value of this mobile also. It cannot be that at that point in time, you say I'll take this but I'll not take the other part. There would be continuity. So, therefore, to maintain the evidentiary value, you have got to capture the data in toto. But then once you have captured the data, it's the responsibility of the tax department to ensure that whatever investigation is done, only the relevant data is actually analysed, and the other data is redacted. So will there be specific rules for the new investigation process based on the new bill? If you see the manual that we have come out with, the search and seizure manual, we have put that also as one of the requirements. We are also coming up with the digital manual for analysis of digital evidence. There also we would be actually taking care of it. So, we will address it. What is the pendency of cases in direct taxes? And how are you going to address it? Yes, there is a pendency. About 5.5 lakh cases are pending. So we have taken certain steps. For example, last year we came up with this VSVS 2024 scheme (Vivad se Vishwas Scheme), and 40,000 people participated in that. To that extent, those were taken care of. Now, what we have done is that we have expanded the numbers of commissioner appeals. Officers who were doing appellate ones. We have also given appeal work to principal commissioners. We have tried to profile appeals with similar issues, Identify which can be low-hanging fruits for easy disposals. We have tried to give numbers, scores to the appeals, which actually prompt the officers to dispose of more appeals. So these are the steps that have been taken. In fact, if you see last year, we disposed of about 1.75 lakh appeals at the first appellate level in FY25, which was a substantial percentage increase of 55.18 per cent over 2023-24. And more so, the number of disposals were more than the number of new appeals instituted. So that in fact, for the first time, this came down but we are very conscious about it. The Select Committee was also insistent, and rightly so, that we should actually work on reducing the appellate pendency. Primarily this happened because at the time of Covid, the appeal disposal was not so high. So all those things were there. But we are taking all the steps. So this year, you are looking at reducing… Yes. In a big way, we are trying to reduce. We have already set for ourselves a target of more than 2 lakh for this year, but then we will not rest at that and we'll try to (reduce it) further. Aanchal Magazine is Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express and reports on the macro economy and fiscal policy, with a special focus on economic science, labour trends, taxation and revenue metrics. With over 13 years of newsroom experience, she has also reported in detail on macroeconomic data such as trends and policy actions related to inflation, GDP growth and fiscal arithmetic. Interested in the history of her homeland, Kashmir, she likes to read about its culture and tradition in her spare time, along with trying to map the journeys of displacement from there. ... Read More
Indian Express
28 minutes ago
- Indian Express
‘Good cop, bad cop': How fake NCB officers duped 62-year-old woman of Rs 77 lakh
Last August, a 62-year-old woman was surfing an online drug store's website for her monthly prescription of sleeping pills. It was a routine for her to order medicines online every month for a neurological ailment. However, her latest search landed her in trouble, which ended in an alleged digital arrest fraud of Rs 77 lakh as two men — allegedly posing as officers of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) — played 'good cop, bad cop', said police. After she reported her ordeal to the police, it took investigators nine months to trace the accused who had transferred a major portion of the money in his bank account. His arrest led the police to four more accomplices, all of whom were arrested by July 1, said officers. A resident of Vasant Kunj and a former teacher, the woman told police she had received the first call from the alleged fraudsters last August. A man posing as an NCB officer triggered alarm by claiming that she had ordered 'banned drugs'. The woman who lives alone panicked. 'The caller told her that the drug she ordered was banned in India and that the NCB suspected she was helping the supply of these drugs in Delhi,' a senior police officer, privy to the investigation details, said. Transfer a certain amount of money to verify the bank account details or face an arrest warrant — Neeru felt helpless when the caller gave her these two options. Desperate to prove her innocence, Neeru had transferred a total of Rs 3 lakh in separate tranches to multiple accounts by September 10, 2024,. 'She then waited for the next call, hoping to be cleared of all charges,' a police officer said. After 10 days, she got another call. But this time it was the 'good cop'. 'The man on the call, who also posed as an NCB officer, told her that he knew that she was innocent. He told her to stay calm and let him work with the NCB to get her money back,' the officer explained. The 62-year-old received Rs 20,000 back into her account two days later — she was allegedly assured that this was the first of the many transactions. 'The 'good cop' had gained her trust,' the officer added. She got a video call on WhatsApp after two days. 'This time, four men were on call. She was asked to share her screen and open her bank account after which all her money would be returned. As she trusted the man who had posed as the 'good cop', she followed the instructions,' the officer explained. Trouble, however, deepened for the elderly woman as her netbanking credentials were allegedly stolen. The video call ended with the fraudsters allegedly telling the woman that they were satisfied with the probe. Soon after, her worst nightmare turned true. Multiple debit messages flashed on her mobile phone — transactions of Rs 5 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and so on… When she called up the man posing as the NCB officer, his phone was off. She finally sought help from a relative and registered a complaint at the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSCO) Unit of the Delhi Police's Special Cell on September 26, 2024. A team under ACP Manoj Kumar and Sub Inspector Karamvir started a probe into the money trail. 'The call detail records and IMEI details of beneficiary account holders were obtained from the technical service providers and banks concerned. During further investigation it was found that around Rs 48 lakh from the duped amount was further transferred to a particular account,' the officer explained. This account belonged to Akhilesh (23), a resident of Nuh in Haryana. The police raided his home and found that he had left for Delhi—on the pretext of preparing for judicial services examinations. Multiple locations popped up when police tried to trace him through his mobile location. Investigators finally reached a breakthrough in June when his location was traced in the hub of government exam aspirants — Mukherjee Nagar. 'On June 24, Akhilesh was traced living at a rented apartment in Indira Vikas Colony, Mukharjee Nagar. He tried to flee but he was overpowered. He was arrested and his disclosure statement was recorded wherein he stated that he received the cheated amount on the direction of his associates — Amjad, Saahid and Shakeel. He also trapped the victim to share her phone screen on video call and gained access to the victim's bank account to transfer funds to his own bank account,' the officer underlined. On June 27, a raid was conducted in Punhana, Haryana, and Amjad and Shahid were arrested as well. Amjad, the police said, was the man who pretended to be the 'good cop and the woman's well-wisher'. 'Amjad disclosed that he and his brother-in-law Shahid, along with his friend Shakeel, called the victim and threatened her of arrest. They also disclosed involvement of the other accused, Hamid, saying that he was the fourth fake NCB officer,' the police officer added. On July 1, the police raided Hamid's home in Rajasthan's Deeg. Shakeel was also at his home. However, the police said that Hamid's family and the villagers tried to shield the duo, giving Shakeel a chance to flee. But the police chased them down and arrested the duo. So far, the elderly woman has got just Rs 3 lakh from the duped amount. The police are now tracking a string of bank accounts used by the accused. Some of the confiscated phones, as per officers, also have evidence of sextortion from other victims and investigation is on.
Time of India
30 minutes ago
- Time of India
From users to dealers: Women drawn deeper into drug trade in Ernakulam
Kochi: Police and excise officers in Ernakulam are noting a concerning trend: An increase in the number of women apprehended in narcotic cases. Seven women have been arrested for drug offences so far this month alone. City police arrested three women with narcotics, while excise department and rural police arrested two women each. The arrests were made from apartments and hotel rooms in Kakkanad, Elamkulam, Pallimukku and Thykoodam. One woman was apprehended from a car in Kalamassery, while two others were caught with ganja in Perumbavoor. Number of men arrested for drug peddling also did not dip, as over 60 youths were arrested in major drug cases in the past two months in Ernakulam. Excise special squad inspector K P Pramod said what he observed was that in many cases, women were introduced to the drug by their friends, and it later led to addiction. "After using it for six or seven times, most become hooked on the drug. Then it is like they can't live without it. It is this addiction that derails the life of our youth. Unless the addict herself or himself decides to get out of it with conviction, it is very difficult to relinquish it once you are trapped," said Pramod. An excise officer said that one of the women they arrested was an Ernakulam native, and she was introduced to drugs by her ex-husband. "She married her boyfriend at a very young age. He was into drug abuse. After divorce, she turned into drug smuggling to make money. She started to procure drugs in large quantities from Bengaluru and then sell it here," the officer said. The officer added that she has an 11-year-old daughter, and she used to travel with the girl to avoid detection. "She had a strong customer base. She used to go to Bengaluru along with the girl after taking money in advance from her customers and then return with the substance. This largely avoided detection. It was the first time that she was caught red-handed," said an officer. In one of the cases reported last week, the arrested woman was found to be employed at a reputed company, drawing a monthly salary of over Rs 50,000. "She was introduced to drugs by her boyfriend and gradually became addicted," said a senior police officer. The woman and her friend were arrested with 30 LSD stamps from a hotel room where they were staying for a week, paying Rs 1,500 per day as rent. "They were selling drugs to support their addiction and to maintain an upscale lifestyle," the officer added. According to officers, many drug peddling rackets intentionally rope in women to avoid immediate detection by law enforcement agencies. Statistics indicate that drug trafficking is once again on the rise after a temporary decline caused by increased police surveillance in the wake of a series of violent crimes. "After the launch of Operation D-Hunt by state police, most peddlers initially went underground. Now, with improved intelligence gathering, we are locating youths holed up in apartments and hotel rooms with narcotics," a police officer said.
