Held for fraud, man accuses school of tax theft in crores

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 19

Gagan Marwaha, the sacked head accountant of Spring Blossoms School who has been facing charges of fraud, today accused the school owner of evading taxes to the tune of Rs 100 crore by submitting incorrect tax entries in the past decade.

The police had arrested Gagan Marwaha last night in a case pertaining to misappropriation of school funds, fraud and forgery. He was presented in a court today.

During his brief interaction with mediapersons outside the court, he demanded an inquiry by the Vigilance and Income Tax Departments into the affairs of Spring Dale School. Gagan claimed that he had documentary proofs pertaining to wrong tax entries and he would present these before the court. He alleged that school owner Sahiljit Singh Sandhu threatened him that he would get his children murdered and ruin the family if he broke silence.

Earlier, the family members of Gagan Marwaha, including Rinkal Marwaha (wife), Ashok Marwaha (father), Varinder Anand (father-in-law) and children, demanded police protection citing threat from the school owner. Gagan’s family too faces the charges of financial misappropriation and forgery.

Ashok Marwaha said his son had been working for Spring Blossoms School for last 10 years. “The owner of the school used to force him to file wrong entries to evade income tax. Sahiljit Singh Sandhu owns three schools in which around 7,000 students are enrolled. The school management doesn’t show income from the kindergarten, club classes and activity fee to the Income Tax Department. He earns heftily by selling uniforms and books but doesn’t pay taxes,” said Ashok Marwaha.

“When Gagan denied to do such a forgery, the school implicated him in a false case,” he added.

When contacted, Sahiljit Singh Sandhu, Director, Spring Blossoms School, refuted the allegations. “We deposit the fee received from students with banks. Parents get receipts for every payment. Following the directions of the CBSE, we have adopted cashless system for fee submission. As far as the allegation of issuing threats is concerned, we have reputation in society and no one can think to kill someone’s children,” he said.

According to Sandhu, Gagan has “misappropriated” school funds amounting to about Rs 1 crore. “A complaint was sent to the police when the school authorities came across the fraud during a financial audit,” he added.

On October 9 last year, an FIR under Sections 420, 406 and 120-B of the IPC was registered against Gagan. Gagan and his father were lodged in jail for two and one month, respectively. Soon after being released from the jail, the police added new offences under Sections 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC and arrested Gagan.

The case

• Spring Blossoms School owner files case against its head accountant Gagan Marwaha for allegedly misappropriating Rs 1 crore.
• Gagan Marwaha after being presented in a court on Friday tells media that he possesses proof regarding tax evasion by school to the tune of crores of rupees.
• School rubbishes allegations, claims transparency in transactions.