Spurious fuel racket busted in Gujarat

Spurious fuel racket busted in Gujarat
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

AHMEDABAD, JAN 19: The seizure of a tanker carrying industrial solvent earlier this month has led the police to a huge racket of petrol adulteration. The police have found that Yash Organics, the company which owned the solvent, had sent 837 tankers of solvent to different parts of the country in the last nine months. However, none of them actually crossed the Gujarat border.

The police believe the solvent was used for petrol adulteration in the state. Each tanker carried a minimum of 10,000 litre solvent, which easily mixes with petrol and costs about Rs 11 per litre. The price of petrol, on the other hand, is more than Rs 27 per litre.

The police have arrested five directors of Yash Organics Parash Shantilal Savla, Kantilal Velji Savla, Manoj Shantilal Savla, Rupesh Kantilal Savla and Shantibhai Muljibhai Savla and seized the company records. Three of the arrested are also directors of Deep Industries. According to reports, Parash Shantilal Savla and his family members also own several petrol pumps inGujarat and in the city.

The five directors have been booked for violation of the Essential Commodities Act and under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including cheating, forging of documents and carrying on an illegal trade.It was on January 4 that the police seized a tanker of Mahavir Bulk Carriers and a Tata Sumo of Yash Organics on suspicion. The tanker carried industrial solvent while the Tata Sumo carried motor gasoline colour dye, which is a prohibited substance. The tanker was supposedly carrying solvent for an Agra firm, Raj Chemicals.

However, investigations revealed that Raj Chemicals had not placed any order for solvent. Further, it was found that, after the seizure of the tanker, Parash Shantilal Savla rang up one Rajesh Kapoor in Agra and told him to send a fax, purportedly from Raj Chemicals, asking for despatch of solvent and authorising Mahavir Bulk Carriers to transport it. The forensic report of the solvent revealed that it did not conform to specifications that thecompany was supposed to manufacture. Besides, the company paid excise duty at 16 per cent against the stipulated 32 per cent. Therefore, the directors are also liable to be booked for excise evasion, which works out to Rs 15,360 per truck.

According to the police, the company had shown the sale of 837 truckloads of solvent, a large part of it to Raj Chemicals, in the last nine months. The company used four trucks, belonging to Deep Industry and Visat Petrol Pump, which the Savla family owns. But none of these trucks had an all-India permit. Inquiries at the Ratanpur check-post also showed that none of the trucks had crossed the state borders.