New Delhi: Sales executive Anuj Kumar Srivastav’s story may seem like a typical fairy tale, but with a twist.
Srivastav, who earns Rs 25,000 a month and lives in a rented accommodation in Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar, got to know a few months ago that he was the director of 13 companies and had engaged in transactions worth over Rs 20 crore earlier, with one deal by a Hong Kong-based company totalling Rs 61 lakh.
While Srivastav was still trying to wrap his head around his “business empire”, the Income Tax department sent him a notice in January, blowing the lid off a racket involving false identities and his PAN Card.
Alarmed at the notice, the 27-year-old lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police and the Enforcement Directorate in February, stating that his PAN number had been used without his knowledge by “bogus companies to engage in large scale dealings with companies abroad”.
It took months of persistence for Srivastav to finally get what he wanted. On July 31, a Delhi court ordered the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police to act on the complaint and furnish a detailed report on September 1, The Indian Express reported.
The sales executive hopes that the I-T department will now rectify the “mistake”.
Srivastav, who hails from Buxar in Bihar, said he initially ignored the first three notices of the department mentioning that he had used his PAN Card for a transaction in April 2015 worth Rs 61.37 lakh. He said he received a call from an I-T official, who informed him that the payment was made in lieu of import of software and was carried forward from the Janakpuri branch of a national bank.
Srivastav then approached the bank along with his CA and was shocked when the manager showed him a photocopy of his voter ID card, PAN card and photo. However, the signature did not match. The 27-year-old said he lodged an official complaint with the police but no action was taken. When he found that a “heavy amount” was deducted on his Income Tax form, he again tried to approach the investigating agency.
“With the help of my CA, I found out that I had been made director of around 13 companies and my PAN card was used to create bogus accounts from which transactions of Rs 20 crore were carried out in the last seven months,” he told The Indian Express.
On a lighter note, Srivastav joked that he had been unable to get a personal loan of Rs 5 lakh as banks had rejected his application after looking at the original returns form but now, his friends called him a tycoon.
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