By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JULY 06, 2013: TAX evasion is normally believed to be a risky business. But, if one goes by the recent incident, one may feel compelled to conclude that Anti-evasion is fraught with greater risk. Here unfolds the story:

+ the DGCEI (Hqs) receives intelligence of alleged tax evasion by one Muzzafarnagar-based unit i.e M/s Trikoot Iron and Steel Casting Ltd;

+ Acting on the actionable inputs with alacrity, the officers conduct searches on the resident of the Directors, the factory and the Head Office premises last Thursday;

+ Teams seize many incriminating documents, pendrives and hard discs containing data of sales;

+ Irked by the raid, one of the Directors resorted to an unusual defence of opening the cage of his pet dogs of Great Den and Saint Bernard breeds;

+ The ferocious canine completely changed the 'plot' of the operation from the officers chasing the Directors to the officers making good use of their legs to look for safe shelter;

+ Unfortunately, the legs of one of the officers failed him, and the canine outpaced him only to make good use of their scary teeth;

+ The dogs were let loose allegedly only to buy some time to destroy the 'hard disc' of a computer being run from the kitchen of the Director's residence;

+ Having 'bought' some time, the Director allegedly threw the hard disc of his kitchen-based system connected to three different monitors installed in three rooms;

+ With the help of the police and more officers, the situation was brought under control, and a fresh hunt was launched to locate the missing hard disc;

+ The hard disc was finally retrieved along with other documents;

+ The DGCEI has claimed that the assessee has allegedly recorded sales of saria to the tune of Rs 100 Cr in the last three months but had shown only Rs 35 Cr sales on paper;

+ The Director of the unit has apparently paid Rs 1 crore on the spot, and the probe is on.

+ The projected evasion is alleged to be Rs 20 Cr.