New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANS): In the ongoing drive against the availment of inadmissible input tax credit (ITC), officials of the of Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Commissionerate, Delhi East, have unearthed a multi-layered network of fictitious firms being used to generate and pass on fake ITC.

Through the use of extensive data analytics, the officials identified and searched 21 premises between January 15 and 17, leading to the unraveling of a network of fake firms that were operating since 2017 to pass on fake ITC.

According to a statement, the network of fake firms was being operated by one Arvind Kumar, who used to pass fake ITC for a commission of 4-4.5 per cent of the invoice amount.

Investigation conducted so far has revealed 46 firms to be fictitious which were being controlled by Arvind Kumar and his associates, the statement said.

These firms had no business activity and had been created solely for the purpose of passing on fake ITC. The total fake ITC quantified so far is Rs 82.23 crore, generated out of the fake billing of Rs 541.13 crore which is expected to increase as the investigation progresses.

Arvind Kumar was arrested under Section 69(1) of the CGST Act, 2017. The duty magistrate has remanded him to judicial custody of 14 days, till January 31. Further investigation in the case is under progress.

It is pertinent to mention here that since the inception of GST, the Delhi zone has made 19 arrests in various cases involving GST evasion amounting to more than 3,766.69 crore.