Mahesh Langa, Gujarat-based journalist with The Hindu, arrested in alleged GST fraud case

On Monday, the Economic Offences Wing and the Special Operations Group, acting on the DGGI complaint, had carried out raids at 14 premises across five districts – Ahmedabad, Junagadh, Surat, Kheda and Bhavnagar.

Mahesh Langa, a Gujarat-based senior assistant editor at The Hindu, was on Tuesday morning placed under arrest along with three others by the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB). The development comes a day after 13 firms and their proprietors were booked for alleged input tax credit (ITC) fraud, based on a complaint filed by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI).

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, Ajit Rajian confirmed Langa’s arrest and said, “We have recovered Rs 20 lakh unaccounted cash, some gold and several land documents from him.”

Police allege the GST fraud caused a loss to the government exchequer, with the accused availing and passing on bogus ITC through fake bills. There are more than 220 benami firms set up on the basis of forged documents that were used in the racket, the FIR alleges.

While Langa is not named in the FIR, his cousin Manojkumar Langa is named as one of the proprietors of an Ahmedabad-based firm, DA Enterprise, in which Mahesh Langa’s wife is a partner, the police have alleged. Neither Langa’s cousin nor his wife has been arrested.

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Also accused in the case are Talala BJP MLA Bhagwan Barad’s son Ajay, and his nephews Vijaykumar Kalabhai Barad and Ramesh Kalabhai Barad. According to police, they are listed as proprietors of Veraval-based Aryan Associates. The MLA, when contacted, denied allegations of fraud.

Reacting to the case against Senior Assistant Editor Mahesh Langa, based in Gujarat related to an alleged GST fraud, Suresh Nambath, Editor, The Hindu has said on the social media app Bluesky, “While we have no details about the merits of the case, we are given to understand that this is not related to his reports published in The Hindu”

Nambath further said, “We  would like to state at this time that we appreciate his professional work for The Hindu as the Gujarat correspondent based in Ahmedabad. We do hope that no journalist anywhere is targeted for their work, and we expect the investigation to be conducted fairly and quickly.”

On Monday, the Economic Offences Wing and the Special Operations Group, acting on the DGGI complaint, had carried out raids at 14 premises across five districts – Ahmedabad, Junagadh, Surat, Kheda and Bhavnagar.

According to the FIR, the alleged fraud is said to have been committed between February 1 and May 1 last year. According to the FIR and police officers, the prime accused in the case is a firm called Dhruvi Enterprise, which allegedly created six firms from a single PAN. The aim was to avail ITC by showing transactions that were never actually done, police say.

Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Sharad Singhal confirmed, “On the basis of the complaint filed by the DGGI, we found that the accused firms and their proprietors availed bogus ITC, which had fraudulently been passed on to them by Dhruvi Enterprise.”

Ahmedabad city Commissioner of Police Gyanender Singh Malik claimed “(Mahesh Langa’s) wife is a director in one of the firms involved in the GST fraud”. “However, when the Crime Branch questioned her, she said she did not know anything about any such company or her name being used in it. The police then questioned Mahesh Langa and found that he was the one who was handling the entire firm,” he alleged.

On Mahesh Langa’s name not figuring in the FIR, he said, “Just because his name is not there in the FIR does not mean Mahesh Langa is not an accused. His role in one of the companies came out during the investigation, which is why he was placed under arrest by the Crime Branch.”

Bhagwan Barad, the BJP MLA, meanwhile told The Indian Express, “We had bought iron through a company and paid GST. That company did not pay the GST and it turned out to be a fraudulent company.”

Barad said Aryan Associates is his nephew’s company, and since that conducted a transaction with the “fraud company”, police have registered an offence.

“As the offence is registered, (police) are investigating. But there is no arrest (of my son or nephews)… Our company is functional and it does work for the government itself… Our lawyers will do the necessary process,” he said.

Barad was elected to the Assembly from Talala constituency of Gir Somnath district on a Congress ticket in 2017. In March 2019, he was convicted in a 24-year-old case of illegal limestone mining and disqualified. His conviction, however, was stayed by the Gujarat High Court and his disqualification was revoked by the Speaker.

In the run up to the assembly elections, Barad resigned as Congress MLA in November 2022 and joined the BJP. The party fielded him from the same constituency in the 2022 assembly elections, which he won.

Others arrested by the Crime Branch on Tuesday have been identified as Aijaz, a Bhavnagar resident and a partner in a firm selling electric panel boards; Abdulkader, who is also from Bhavnagar and is involved in the sale of sugarcane juice, readymade clothes and mattresses; and Jyotish Magan Gondaliya, a resident of Surat who owns a firm with his wife.

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