The income tax (I-T) department served a notice to a tea-seller in Patan ordering him to pay a penalty of Rs 49 crore for illegal transactions amounting to Rs 34 crore in his account.
Facts came to light that two brothers, to whom he had been serving tea for around 10 years, had used his credentials to conduct the transactions.
The tea-seller, Khemraj Dave, filed an FIR with the Patan B Division police. A native of Kankrej in Banaskantha, he has been running his tea stall at the Patan commodity market since 2014.
Dave mentioned in the FIR that he had been serving tea at the office of Alpesh Patel and Vipul Patel from Unjha in Mehsana. They had been running a brokerage business in the Patan commodity market for many years.
Credentials misused
In 2014, Dave sought Alpesh’s help to link his PAN card to his bank account. He gave his Aadhaar card, PAN card, and eight photographs to Alpesh as requested.
The next day, Alpesh visited Dave’s tea stall and took his signatures on several documents. A few days later, Dave received his Aadhaar card back. Alpesh took a photocopy under the pretext of submitting it to the I-T department.
Nearly a decade later, in August 2023, Dave received two notices from the I-T department one after another. Unable to read the notices in English, Dave did not respond to them.
He received a third notice on August 23, 2023, after which he went to an advocate, Suresh Joshi, who read the document and found out that a tax penalty had been issued by the I-T department for illegal transactions that took place in the financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16.
Fake account
Dave checked his account but did not find any transactions. He managed to meet an I-T officer in Patan who told him that another account had been activated in his name, which was being used by the scamsters.
Dave then submitted a plea to the local police, who found that Alpesh and his brother Vipul were operating accounts in his name. The duo were questioned in the case but are yet to be arrested.
Following Dave’s complaint, the B Division police of Patan city registered a complaint against Alpesh and Vipul of breach of trust, cheating, forgery, forgery with the purpose of cheating, producing forged documents as genuine, criminal conspiracy, and abetment.
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