As the government has stepped up action against financial irregularities and frauds, cases by various agencies such as Central Board of Direct Taxes , Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Directorate General of GST Intelligence recorded a significant increase over the last four years. When it comes to direct and indirect taxes, though, there is a clear divergent trend.

A closer look at government data reveals that the Central Board of Direct Taxes has registered an over six-fold increase in the number of prosecution cases filed in courts to 4,524 in 2017-18 from 669 in 2014-15. Searches and seizure by CBDT have also seen a spurt, rising to 1,152 in 2016-17 and 581 in 2017-18 (provisional) from 545 in 2014-15. On the indirect tax front, though, a significant drop in the evasion cases detected by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence is evident, with 237 cases involving amount of Rs 1,332.6 crore detected in 2017-18 and 155 cases involving Rs 727.1 crore in 2018-19 , as against 1,550 cases involving Rs 12,112.5 crore in 2015-16. In 2016-17, the agency had detected 2,011 cases involving amount of Rs 15,074.1 crore.

Recovery in evasion cases involving GST have also registered a sharp decline from Rs 1,975.4 crore recovered in 1,067 cases in 2015-16 to Rs 354.9 crore in 93 cases in 2017-18 and Rs 475.8 crore in 127 cases in 2018-19 (up to June), government data showed. Interestingly, the number of persons arrested by DGGSTI have increased from 14 in 2015-16 to 23 in 2017-18.

The value of total assets seized by CBDT increased to Rs 1,469.45 crore in 2016-17 and Rs 997.17 crore from Rs 761.70 crore in 2014-15, while the undisclosed income increased to Rs 15,754.95 crore in 2017-18 from Rs 10,228.05 crore in 2014-15.

Cases involving fraud detected by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence have nearly doubled to 847 in 2017-18 from 437 in 2015-16. The amount of duty recovered in these cases increased to Rs 956.03 crore in 2017-18 from Rs 500.09 crore in 2015-16. In 2018-19, up to July, DRI detected 181 fraud cases and recovered duty of Rs 724.63 crore.