The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has claimed in its supplementary chargesheet filed in connection with the excise policy case of Delhi that another method of recovery of kickbacks was through passing of credit notes.
The ED has alleged that credit notes were shared between parties who had no common transactions.
The ED said that basically, credit notes were eyewash to divert the ill-gotten money.
"Ordinarily, the credit notes are passed to the person who has direct nexus with or has sold the goods. However, in this case, the manufacturers were giving credit notes to the retailers with whom they had no direct transactions," the ED alleged.
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The ED chargesheet read that there was no apparent reason to give credit notes to businesses which are minting money with MRP being three times the cost and having profit margins of 185 per cent approx.
The ED claimed that the credit notes were an eyewash to transfer money illegally to pay kickbacks which is evident from the fact that the ostensible reason of volume based credit notes was bogus and credit notes have been passed in an inconsistent manner considering the sales volume.
"For example, Pernod Ricard has not given any credit notes to M/s Adharv Enterprises against the volume of 19,080 cases purchased in the months of December 2021, January 2022, and February 2022. However, Pernod Ricard gave Rs 61.01 lakh as credit notes to M/s Organomix Ecosystems Pvt. Ltd. (which is part of the 'south group' cartel), which purchased 17,644 cases during the said three months," read the ED chargesheet.
