Ahmedabad: A local court has jailed the owner of two chemical companies. who was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in Ahmedabad in connection with a case of evasion of custom duty to the tune of Rs 4 crore and illegal import of insecticides.

A DRI official today said that specific intelligence was received that M/s. Star Chemicals and M/s. Star Enterprises both situated at University Plaza, Near Vijay Char Rasta, in Navrangpura area of Ahmedabad have been illegally importing technical grade Insecticides/pesticides by mis-declaring the same as organic chemical,fertilizer, pigment etc. in their import documents. During searches incriminating documents were recovered. The scrutiny revealed that they have been importing Emamectin Technical (Pesticide), Abamectin Technical (Insecticide), Chlorantraniliprole Technical (Pesticide), Azoxystrobin Technical (Herbicide) etc by mis-declaring the same as Anionic Polyacrylamide, Calcium Stearate, Chitosan Powder, Fulvic Acid, Pigment Yellow, Polyelectrolyte Anionic, Super Absorbent Polymer, Xanthan Gum etc. It was also revealed that they were also doing undervaluation and declaring only 1/15 th to 1/20 th of the actual value to evade the applicable Customs duty. By such misclassification and undervaluation they have evaded Customs duty to the tune of approximately four crores.

”Further they had not obtained registration certificate per Section 9 of the Insecticide Act, 1968, for import or manufacture of insecticide. Rahul Dayal, Proprietor of M/s. Star
Chemicals and Partner of M/s. Star Enterprise in his statement admitted that they have been importing pesticide/insecticide by resorting to mis-declaration, misclassification, undervaluation and without registration certificate. In view of it Dayal has been arrested under Section 104 of the Customs Act, 1962 and was produced in a court which remanded him to the judicial custody. Further investigation is under progress,’ the DRI official said.

DeshGujarat