Anupam Kher's The Accidental Prime Minister Director Arrested For GST Fraud; Will This Affect The Movie?
Gutte has produced three films in Bollywood till now, and was making his directorial debut with The Accidental Prime Minister.
Anupam Kher is playing former Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, in the upcoming film, The Accidental Prime Minister. The movie is based on the book by the same name, written by Singh's former secretary Sanjay Barua. The movie was supposed to come out on December 21 this year, clashing with Shah Rukh Khan's Zero. Anupam Kher used to regularly post updates about the film including his look as the former PM. However, The Accidental Prime Minister now faces a huge hurdle in the path to movie release, as its director has got arrested in a GST fraud case.
Indian Express reports that Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGSTI) had arrested Vijay Ratnakar Gutte a few hours back for committing fraud amounting to at least Rs 34 crore. As per the report, his company, VRG Digital Corp Pvt Ltd, used fake vouchers for the above amount that it got from Horizon Outsource Solutions Pvt Ltd. The latter is already involved in another case of embezzling Rs 170 crore in GST fraud. Not just that, DGGSTI has also accused Gutte of wrongly claiming tax credit for Rs28 crores by showing these fake vouchers under Rs 28 crore under Central Value Added Tax (CENVAT). Gutte has been booked under Section 132 (1)(c) of the CGST Act, where he could face imprisonment for upto 5 years, as well as a heavy fine. Gutte has been arrested and placed in the Arthur Road Jail under judicial custody till August 14.
The report also quotes the remand application saying, “The accused had not only availed of non-existent input tax credit (ITC) but further went ahead and fraudulently claimed refund of such ITC from the GST department on the strength of such fake/ bogus invoices to defraud state exchequer.”
Gutte has produced three films in Bollywood till now, and was making his directorial debut with The Accidental Prime Minister. He is the son of the BJP politician Ratnakar Gutte, who, interestingly, himself is facing accusations of doing Rs 5,500 crore bank fraud.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 03, 2018 08:12 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).