The customs, central excise and service tax department on Tuesday arrested proprietor of a transport firm in the city for not paying Rs 2.35 crore service tax in the six months.

William Colaco, superintendent of central excise, preventive section (Surat-I) arrested Mahesh Ahir, proprietor of Khodiyar Earth Movers Ltd and Ambe Transport for the offence punishable under section 89(1)(a) and (d) of the Finance Act, 1994. Ahir has been sent in to judicial custody of the department. Official sources said that this is the fourth arrest by the service tax department in the last one month. Earlier, four persons running transport and labour contract firms in Hazira were arrested for evading huge amount of service tax.