Nashik and Jalgaon are believed to be the hubs of the oil mafia activities in the state for the last two decades. Criminal syndicates with political nexus run the oil adulteration rackets with impunity, bribing local police and revenue department officials.
A senior police official disclosed that the oil mafia nexus is linked to certain political leaders, who have a nexus with criminal syndicates in the state. The racket in the state is estimated to be over Rs 500 crore, where oil adulteration mafia operators having suspected direct links with certain political weight in Maharashtra.
One of the oil adulteration syndicates in Jalgaon was run by Atim Totla, who had a meteoric rise from being an unknown, hailing from Jalgaon to a petro products dealer with a fleet of tankers driving to almost every corner of the country. His company, Progressive Petroleum Company Ltd ( PPCL), recorded a four- fold profit increase in 10 years of operations - with offices in Jalgaon, Silvassa, Kandla, Indore, Mumbai, Kochi and Mangalore.
In January 2005, the Central Bureau of Investigation had registered a case against PPCL for allegedly diverting naphtha and superior kerosene oil for the adulteration of petrol and diesel, respectively between 1998 and 2003.
Subsequently, in October 2007, Wada police of Thane district registered an FIR against Totla and Rajesh Ghatalia, Bhaskar Desai, Naresh Vora and Nitin Vora under sections 3( i)( ii), 3( 2) and 3( 4) of MCOCA for allegedly evading of crores of rupees.
The FIR was registered after the sales tax department had found that the gang had evaded sales tax of nearly Rs 46.52 crore by importing naptha, kerosene and other by- products in the name of companies like Progressive Petroleum and Paradise Petrochem Shiva Organics, among other firms. The imported naptha was shown on record to have been sold in the local market, whereas the police suspected that the consignment was allegedly utilised for adulterating petrol and diesel in Maharashtra and adjoining states.
However, Bombay High Court later quashed proceedings, under the stringent MCOCA Act, following Totla's moving the high court against the filling of FIR under provisions of MCOCA, saying that evading sales tax did not fall under the act.
Considering an apex court judgement which ruled that, evasion of sales tax was covered by section 63 of the Sales and did not attract provisions of MCOCA, the high court quashed the proceedings under MCOCA. Atim is believed to have been close to a powerful politician and his close kin, in the state.
In the past too, the oil mafia has eliminated senior officials in the state. In June 1992, the then Deputy Inspector General of Police ( Central Bureau of Investigation) R Gade was killed in a road accident in the Nashik ghat regions. The driver of the truck which rammed headlong into Gade's official vehicle later committed suicide. It was suspected by the police that he had been eliminated by the local oil mafia for launching a crackdown a few months before he moved to the CBI on promotion.
" Around three years ago, Pradeep Roogani, was also killed in a similar manner in Nashik.
Roogani's vehicle was hit badly by a moving truck from the opposite direction. It is learnt that Roogani had exposed the multi- crore tax evasion racket carried out with immunity by the the oil adulteration mafia. Roogani had played a role in unraveling the racket, which facilitated in the then BJP state chief and incumbent national BJP president Nitin Gadkari, to get the state government to act against the oil mafia in April 2005.
However, the government action was only cosmetic and a few months later, the oil mafia revived their operations in areas like Nashik, Manmad and pockets of Thane district along the Bombay- Ahmedabad highway," claimed a police official.
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