Manpasand Beverages GST fraud case: After arrests and resignations only 4 executives remain on the board

>> Arrests at Manpasand Beverages set a strong precedent against GST fraud, says PwC India

In another filing today, the beverage maker announced the resignations of independent director Bharat Vyas and director Dhruv Agrawal. Sood and Agarwal put in their papers with respect to the ongoing GST case, while Vyas left due to pre-occupation, the filing said.

Thakkar and Harshvardhan Singh are not mentioned in the Manpasand Beverages' eight-member board of directors listed on the company website, meaning the firm has only four members left on its board.

Dhirendra Singh, the chairman and managing director; Chirag Doshi, independent director; Bharti Naik, independent director and Milind Babar, independent director, are the only board members left now, leaving the management of the firm on shaky ground.

Dhirendra Singh is also the founder of the company.

A statement by the central GST said they carried out multi-location searches on various premises of Manpasand Beverages on May 23. “The searches unearthed a huge racket of creating fake/dummy units for availing fraudulent credit and committing tax evasion of Rs 40 crores and involving turnover of Rs 300 crore,” the release said.

After the arrest of the executives, the firm in an exchange filing, said: "The commissioner of Central GST and Customs has carried out search and seizure proceedings at various premises of the Company on May 23, 2019, and further inquiry was conducted on May 24, 2019 at GST Bhavan office of Vadodara. Mr. Abhishek Singh, whole time director, Mr. Paresh Thakkar, chief financial officer of the company and Mr. Harshvardhan Singh are under judicial custody of authority on yesterday, i.e., May 24, 2019."

This is not the first time Manpasand Beverages has been in trouble due to its financial practices.  In May last year, the firm had announced the sudden resignation of Deloitte Haskins & Sells, the statutory auditors of the company after it failed to provide them with "significant information" on the financial results for the year ended March 31, 2018.