The company has been booked for alleged misuse of SEZ privileges for gold jewellery imports. A case under various sections of Custom Acts, Foreign Trade Development and Regulation Act and SEZ Act has been registered. The director of Kundan Rice Mill, Pradeep Garg, has been summoned by the Delhi unit of DRI.
Officials said the seized gold was brought from Dubai few days ago. While the firm has the licence to trade gold bars and bullion, it started import and export of gold jewellery, an official said.
The firm used to import gold jewellery strips by misdeclaring them as “semi-finished gold unstudded bangles of 995 karat purity”. This jewellery was again shipped back to Dubai without any value addition, the official said.
“Garg not only reaped the benefits of SEZ but also cooked his book of accounts for getting credit facilities from bank and obtained Income Tax exemption. It has been found that the firm was engaged in Rs 4,500 crore of export/import of gold bars in previous fiscal years. Garg was also trying to project his firm as a ‘star trading unit’,” said a senior DRI official.
Investigations also revealed while obtaining approval from Noida SEZ committee, Garg had concealed the fact that he had previous DRI cases against him.
“We also suspect the involvement of SEZ officials who might have helped Garg and his firm. The role of a few officials of the Ministry of Commerce is also under the scanner,” said a DRI sleuth.
Officials claimed that the firm has been involved in the alleged illegal import of gold jewellery for the past few months. Probe is on to establish if the company was involved in money laundering.
Raids at Noida revealed that no manufacturing activity undertaken by Kundan Rice Mill, an therefore there was no generation of employment. It has been found that the firm was generating negative Foreign Exchange Earning (FEE) — the value of firm’s import was more than its export. :- The Indian Express
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