Three persons convicted in ₹26.58-lakh commercial tax fraud case in Keralam

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Three persons, including a former junior superintendent of the Commercial Taxes Office in Neyyattinkara, were on Tuesday convicted and sentenced by the Thiruvananthapuram Vigilance Court for alleged misappropriation of advance tax for interstate goods movement, thereby causing a loss of ₹26.58 lakh to the State exchequer.

Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge (Vigilance) Manoj A. pronounced the verdict against former junior superintendent L. Pushparani, 58, and Satheesh Kumar, 47, who allegedly acted as an intermediary between traders and officials, to 32 years of rigorous imprisonment each and imposed a fine of ₹11,36,193 on each of them. K. Francis, 66, a trader, was sentenced to eight years of rigorous imprisonment and fined ₹6,11,560. 

According to the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB), the case relates to irregularities in the payment of advance tax by traders engaged in interstate commerce during 2007-08. The accused allegedly conspired to use forged challans in which amounts higher than those actually paid into the Treasury were entered in duplicate and triplicate copies.

Pushparani, who was responsible for verifying and confirming the tax amounts remitted to the Treasury, allegedly facilitated the irregularities. The Vigilance alleged that the manipulation of the challans enabled four business establishments to evade tax, resulting in a total loss of ₹26,58,595 to the government.

The Thiruvananthapuram Special Investigation Unit-I of the VACB registered the case and filed the chargesheet after completing the investigation.   

Published - November 10, 2026 10:24 pm IST