Sarnath Police Bring Two From Punjab in Fake GST Firm Case

Sarnath police on Saturday night arrested Praveen Pal and Umashankar Das of Lohara Premnagar under Daba police station in Ludhiana, Punjab, and brought them to Varanasi on transit remand in a case of alleged fake GST firms and wrongful input tax credit filed by the GST department.

The two men are residents of Lohara Premnagar in the Daba police station area of Ludhiana. Police say they face allegations of running fake GST firms, using forged documents and claiming wrongful input tax credit through false identity entries. Those claims remain allegations under investigation. Guilt or innocence is for the court.

The FIR was lodged on 8 April at Sarnath on a complaint by GST Deputy Commissioner Arunendra Prasad. Sub-inspector Ajay Kumar has been on the probe. Senior officers cleared a Ludhiana raid after the Varanasi investigation pointed to the Daba jurisdiction. Daba police assisted on the ground. The accused were produced before a Ludhiana court on 25 September and sent to Varanasi on transit remand. Station house officer Pankaj Tripathi confirmed their identities and the arrests.

Fake-firm GST files usually turn on paper trails: registration entries, bank flows, and whether the firms named in returns match real business at the stated addresses. Wrongful input tax credit allegations mean the department believes credit was claimed against supplies that did not take place in the way shown on the returns. Sarnath police framing the case around forged documents and false identity entries puts document examination at the centre of the next custody stage in Varanasi.

Bringing the accused from Punjab on transit remand is a logistics step as much as a legal one. Remand clocks, production before the local magistrate and further questioning in Varanasi will decide how the file moves after the Ludhiana court order of 25 September. SHO Tripathi's confirmation closes the identity question that often stalls inter-state GST arrests.

Sarnath police have not disclosed firm names, turnover figures or specific input tax credit amounts. What is on record is the two Ludhiana arrests, the April FIR on Deputy Commissioner Arunendra Prasad's complaint, the probe by SI Ajay Kumar, help from Daba police, the 25 September production before the Ludhiana court and the transit remand to Varanasi.

Inter-state GST fraud complaints have become a regular enforcement theme across Uttar Pradesh when dummy registrations are allegedly used to pass credit. This Sarnath case sits in that pattern only as far as the complaint and the arrests allow.

Until further court orders or a charge sheet, the case in Varanasi centres on the custody of Praveen Pal and Umashankar Das in the alleged fake GST firm case registered at Sarnath, after a Ludhiana raid and transit remand confirmed by SHO Pankaj Tripathi.