IAS Officer Sreedevi to Lead Investigation into Rs.1,400 Crore GST Fraud

Hyderabad: The state government appointing IAS official T.K. Sreedevi as chairperson for the high-level committee to probe the Rs.1,400-crore GST fraud involving former chief secretary Somesh Kumar has surprised many.

Sreedevi had flagged the GST fraud during her stint as commercial taxes commissioner but was abruptly transferred within days of the city police registering a case against Somesh Kumar and others. Chief Secretary A. Shanti Kumari recently issued orders setting up the committee and fixing the terms of reference, though the reasons for appointing Sreedevi, currently commissioner, Scheduled Castes Development, as head of the probe panel were not revealed.

Sources said Sreedevi, after her transfer, lobbied with higher-ups to give her a chance to prove her allegations against Somesh Kumar and succeeded in getting the probe committee constituted.

Sreedevi approached city police only after making departmental inquiries but a fresh inquiry with her as chairman gave scope for the alleged accused to paint the previous probe and the police case as half-baked, sources pointed out.

The Chief Secretary’s decision came two months after the state government transferred the case from the city police to the Criminal Investigation Department, and the Enforcement Directorate on the other hand taking up the investigation.

“It is unprecedented for the government to ask an officer, who was transferred from a department, to probe the fraud took place in it at a time when another senior official is heading the department and CID is probing the case,” said a senior official, adding that the government in such case would have retained Sreedevi as CTD commissioner and ask her to assist the probe agencies.

The inclusion of R. Yedukondalu, joint commissioner, who has been facing allegations of corruption, also did not go well with the department. The government has asked the CTD commissioner to probe into allegations against Yedukondalu, according to sources.

The other members in the prone team include joint commissioner E. Deepa Reddy and Nikhil Chakravarthy, executive director of the Telangana Industrial Infrastructure Corporation.

Sources said the probe committee had summoned officials and sought records. The terms of reference included investigating the revenue loss due to the data tinkering as reported in the forensic audit done by C-DAC. It would also delve into desk audit of cases of masked GSTINS, study the preliminary findings of the inspection and audit of these cases once done by the assigned officer, identify the issues and its implication to tax revenues, tracking and review of case, till audit is completed by the investigating officer and arrive at taxable demand as and when completed. It will further probe the modus operandi, persons responsible, role of software developer etc, any other matters related to the subject.

The allegation was that certain taxpayers were removed from the routine checking process by isolating them from the software analytics. This was done by the process of masking through hard coding. Those removed from the radar are mostly the PSUs and State Level Public Enterprises like TG Beverages Corporation, GHMC, LIC and Metro Rail.