Two senior Coke staff held for tax fraud

Two employees of Coca-Cola India's bottlers, Hindustan Coca Cola, were arrested on Friday on charges of availing extra Central Value-added Tax (Cenvat) credit by generating parallel Central Excise invoices.

According to charges levelled by the Central Excise, the two had shown Rs 2.57 crore as credit in the book of accounts of the company.

Suresh Shinde, manager of shipping and excise at Coca-Cola's plant in Wada in Maharashtra's Thane district, and Ramdas Batir, team leader, shipping, at the Nashik plant have been remanded to judicial custody till September 21.

They were earlier produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Mumbai, a senior customs officer informed.

Coca-Cola India, however, said that the charges were baseless and pertaining to old accounts of 2003-04.