The state  sales tax department has busted a major tax evasion racket. The vigilance cell with the department stumbled upon a racket involving bogus 'C' forms belonging to 21 states.

The C forms are normally used to claim tax concession when goods are transported from one state to another. These are statutory declaration forms issued by the purchaser under the central sales tax to avail a concessional tax rate of 2% for the interstate transaction.

The forms are issued by tax assessing authorities for the state from which the purchaser operates.

During a raid conducted earlier this month, the vigilance official discovered three boxes full of bogus blank C forms, including those from other states.

The boxes contained 711 bogus C forms in all. Of these, 145 belonged to the state. There were 116 others belonging to Andhra Pradesh, 80 to Haryana, 69 to Rajasthan, 58 to Gujarat, 45 to Uttar Pradesh. Also, bogus C forms belonging to Jammu and Kashmir (35), Madhya Pradesh (31), Punjab (23), Assam (23), Himachal Pradesh (13), Karnataka (12), Goa (11), Tamilnadu (10), West Bengal (7), Chandigarh (6), Bihar (5), Chattisgarh (3), Delhi (2) and Jharkhand (1). A senior official said aids are on in different states simultaneously to further probe the scam,.

Interestingly, Nashik, which was the epicenter of the Telgi counterfeit stamp paper scam, is at the Centre of this controversy too. "The box containing the bogus forms was recovered from the residence of a plywood dealer at Bajrangwadi in Nashik.

The sales tax officials, who were accompanied by the local police while raiding the dealer's residence, also found various rubber stamps, numbering machines and a seal. "Some of the "C" forms had serial numbers, while others didn't," another official said.

The vigilance team discovered the bogus form racket, while investigating another tax-evasion scandal. The Nashik police have already arrested two suspects identified as Mohammed Latif Solanki and Gulam Mohammed Kadar in the new case. A countrywide probe across various sectors is now on.

A senior sales tax official said, "It was important to probe the source of the paper used for the bogus forms. A specific paper, the quality of which is known to only few paper mills, is used in the case of genuine forms."