DRI imposes penalty on Fastlane for evading tax under AP Fibernet Scam investigation

VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (APSDRI) has imposed a penalty of Rs 34.01 crore on M/s Fastlane Information Technologies Pvt Ltd for tax evasion.

This was as part of the ongoing investigations into the AP Fibernet scam case.

The previous Telugu Desam government had allegedly manipulated the tender process to award the fibernet project worth Rs 330 crore to the Hyderabad-based listed firm Tera Software Ltd, which was a blacklisted company.

The Tera Software firm allegedly utilised the services of M/s Fastlane for misappropriation of funds released by the state Fibernet Ltd (APSFL).

As per reports, the state DRI has ordered the M/s Fastlane firm to pay a penalty of Rs 34,01,43,881 crore for violating the provisions of APGST Act, 2017. The firm has collected GST from the buyers but failed to deposit into a common maintenance deposit fund.

Responding to the DRI notice, Viplav Kumar Valluri, the former MD of M/s Fastlane, said the firm could not pay the taxes due to non-receipt of invoices from the APSFL despite the deduction of TDS.

During an inspection, DRI sleuths found that M/s Fastlane tried to mislead them. As per the officials, the firm received the amounts from APFSL along with invoices and diverted the funds to known firms like Netops Fiber Solutions LLP, XYZ Innovations and Koffee media.

Subsequently, Netops had invested that amount in the real estate company owned by Vemuri Hari Krishna Prasad, a prime accused in the Fibernet scam and an aide of the then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu.

Following the non-payment of this amount, their vendor M/s Ingram approached the national company law tribunal (NCLT). The tribunal heard the matter and commenced the insolvency procedures against the defaulter company, M/s Fastlane.

The GST registration of M/s Fastlane was cancelled after the business entity stopped filing the GST returns in AP from Sept 2020.

According to the reports, Viplav claimed that M/s Fastlane was incorporated on the request of Tummala Gopichand, MD of Tera Software Ltd to assist him in the APSFL project. He was accused (A-11) in the Fibernet scam case and being investigated by state CID.

All the three accused in the Fibernet scam --Viplav Kumar Valluri, Vemuru Hari Krishna and Tummala Gopichand were currently out on bail.