Commissioner General asked to produce documents in VAT inquiry

Sandasen Marasinghe

Colombo High Court Judge Sunil Rajapakse yesterday ordered the Commissioner General of Inland Revenue to appear before Court on Monday to answer matters pertaining to certain documents that were not handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department pertaining to the massive Rs. 3,996 million VAT scam.

The Court also ordered him to hand over all relevant documents to Court within one month.

The Court delivered the order following Deputy Solicitor General Buwaneka Aluvihare yesterday submitting that certain documents have not been handed over to the CID although the VAT Commission had informed the Income Tax Department to do so.

President's Counsel Thilak Marapana appearing for the first accused, retired Deputy Income Tax Commissioner Gnanasiri de Soysa Jayatilake earlier stated that certain documents that should be made available to the witness had not being produced so far.

The VAT fraud was committed by 12 businessmen between November 15, 2002 and July 15, 2004 with support of two Income Tax Department officers by submitting forged documents to the Inland Revenue Department in the course of their conducting their export businesses.

The Attorney General filed indictment against retired Deputy Income Tax Commissioner Gnanasiri de Soysa Jayatilake, Deputy Commissioner Ananda Wickramasinghe Ambepitiya, Rasheed Mohamed Murshid, Bakeer Mohamed Rias, Mohamed Subeire Fausul Amami, Maujul Ameer Irshad, Nagur Mohamed, Nasmi Mohamed Khamil Kuthubdeen, Abdul Mohamed Saheer, Sinnaiyah Subramanium, Salaudeen Ashroff Mohamed Khasim Safeek, Mohamed Ismail Risvin and Sahabdeen Abdullah.

The case will be heard in absentia of third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and twelfth as they are absconding the Court.

Deputy Solicitor General Buwaneka Aluvihare, Senior State Counsel Damith Thotawatta Senior State Counsel Gihan Kulathunga, State Counsel Shanil Kularatne and State Counsel Asad Navavi appeared for the prosecution.