Mumbai: Jail for 6, including woman, in customs fraud case

Mumbai, March 27 A Special CBI Court here has convicted 6 persons accused in a Rs. 4.72 crore customs duty evasion case under the Duty Entitlement Pass Book (DEPB) Scheme, an official said here on Saturday.

They are: (Mrs). Snehalata Samdarshi Jaiswal who has been sentenced to 3 years jail plus a fine of Rs. 3.80 crore, Ramesh Surajbax Singh, Kiran Narhari Cheulkar, Pradeep Babulal Sanghavi, all awarded 2 years jail and Rs. 4.50 lakh fine each, and Suresh Kumar Jain, one year prison with Rs.3. lakhs fine.

A company, Messrs KMP Syntex Pvt. Ltd. was also found guilty and slapped a fine of Rs. 3 lakhs in the same case.

The Special Judge ordered that the amount lying in the Central Bank of India account of the sole woman convict, Snehala Samdarshi Jaiswal, must be credited to the government treasury after the expiry of the appeal period in her conviction.

The CBI had filed the case on Sep. 21, 1999 against the accused persons following a complaint followed by a charge-sheet later.

The complainant said that the accused, in connivance with the Appraiser Officer of Customs Department, Navi Mumbai, obtained 18 DEPB scrips from the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for a duty-free import in the name of 4 non-existing fictitious companies by submitting forged shipping bills and forged bank realisation certificates to the DGFT Mumbai and New Delhi.

The CBI charge-sheet said that this resulted in a total loss of around Rs. 4.72 crore to the national exchequer, said the CBI.

Another accused in the case, Abhinav Singh, the then Appraiser Officer of Customs Department, was absconding and declared a Proclaimed Offender by the Special Court.

Later, the CBI learnt that he had acquired a fake degree and was practicing as a doctor in Agra under an assumed identity.

After painstaking efforts, Singh was also nabbed and booked, and the CBI filed a supplementary charge-sheet against him in the Special Court, Mumbai.

In July 2020, Singh was found guilty and sentenced to a simple imprisonment for 16 months and a fine of Rs.9 lakhs in the case.

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( With inputs from IANS )