Surat BJP leader PVS Sarma arrested in forgery case

SURAT: Local BJP leader and former income tax officer, PVS Sarma, who had created a flutter with his sensational money laundering allegations post-demonetisation, was arrested for forgery and other offences lodged against him, on Saturday.
Umra police detained Sarma on Friday night soon after he was discharged from a private hospital where he was under treatment since November 15 when he had tried to commit suicide.Sarma had tried to hang himself at his friend’s house in Satem village of Navsari, a day after he was booked for forgery. He was remanded to police custody for a day.
Two other accused in the case, Sitaram Adukiya (69), Sarma’s partner and Mukhtar Saeed Baig (56), an employee in his firm, were arrested on Wednesday.
They have been booked for allegedly forging circulation figures of the Gujarati and English newspapers that they ran to get government and private advertisements.
They were booked under Indian Penal Code 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (use of forged documents), 420 (cheating), and others.
The complaint was lodged by income tax department’s deputy director, Pammayya KD.
Sarma was vice-president of the city BJP unit that was dissolved recently after the appointment of new chief. He was also the municipal councillor of Surat Municipal Corporation from 2010 to 2015.
Earlier, Sarma’s house, office and premises of his associates were raided on October 21 by 12 teams of income tax following information about his disproportionate assets. During the raid, IT sleuths had gathered various documents related to the newspapers that Sarma and Adukiya ran as directors.
IT officials found that they claimed a much higher number of published copies of the newspapers to get advertisements from the Directorate of Advertisement and Visual Publicity, a government department and private parties as well. During inquiry, IT officials found that they had shown purchase of raw material to print newspapers from a firm located in Mahidharpura, but found there was no such firm operating at the address.
Sarma’s residence and offices were raided soon after he alleged a scam on social media related to Kalamandir Jeweller during demonetization. Sources informed that Sarma was already served notices by the IT department related to his assets after which he alleged the scam on social media.