By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JAN 02, 2020: GOING by the judicial proceedings today before the vacation Judge, the CBI which claimed to trap ADG, Ludhiana DRI, in an alleged bribery case, one may tend to conclude that the CBI has not only goofed up but also fell in a trap laid aginst it to scuttle a larger scam of over Rs 2000 Cr export benefits.

Though the CBI insisted on police custody of the accused but foreceful arguments and production of some of prima facie documents convinced the Judge that it was not a fit case of police remand and ordered Judicial Custody only till Monday when the courts are going to resume work after a vacation.

The counsels for the ADG, Mr Chandrashekhar, Mr M S Arora and Mr Rakesh Chitkara clearly put the CBI Counsel on mat by asking relevant questions and challenging them to produce evidence or phone recording. Even the main accused told the court that he did not know Mr Chandrashekhar and had never met him. The other co-accused said that he was heading for Dubai but the agency forced him to go to Ludhiana.

What transpired in today's proceedings was that conspirators who misled the CBI into making a wrong case did not want the ADG to proceed with Rs 2000 Crore scam which involves many apparel and garment exporters from Delhi.

The scam was busted in June 2019 based on intelligence received from COIN and a series of raids were conducted by the Ludhiana DRI. Summons were issued and statements were recorded and the DRI found that the accused CHA was the owner of four export firms which had availed ineligible export benefits of over Rs 108 Crore. The four firms owned by the CHA had procured goods from 12 companies owned by a former COFEPOSA detainee. Based on GST records, bogus supplies were detected. Punjab SGST report also corroborated the same findings. The entire case was suspected to be a Circular trading worth Rs 2000 Crore.

This case is also a pointer to the trend detected by the North Block where maximum IGST refund was claimed by a large number of exporters in Delhi.

Since this scam involves many exporters who enjoy financial muscles to buy evidences and sponsor conspiracies, the counsels for the ADG say that he has been framed in such a manner that his detention leads to his deemed suspension and he is removed from the on-going investigations.