Khali courts row over sale of event tickets sans GST number

Arun Sharma

Tribune News Service

Nangal, November 18

While the state Finance Ministry is imposing new taxes and cess on common man to wriggle out from financial crisis being faced by Punjab, tickets of a private wrestling event organised by Dalip Singh, known as ‘Great Khali’ were sold without deducting Goods and Service Tax (GST) or mentioning its numbers, here today. 

The organisers sold entry tickets each worth Rs 500 and Rs 300 to generate income from the event. The organisers were supposed to deposit 28 per cent of the total sales as the tax, which earlier was known as entertainment tax.

Interestingly, local MLA and Punjab Speaker Rana KP Singh was chief guest on the occasion. Besides, the district administration as well as the police opened its heart for the organisers by providing venue free of cost and deploying over 200 security personnel at the event.

Director, Continental Wrestling Entertainment Pvt Ltd (CWE), Khali, has already organised three such events at Panchkula, Ambala and Karnal in Haryana since November 11.

After the TNS started inquiries about the issue the Sales Tax Department woke up from its slumber and sent a tax inspector at the venue. State taxation officer Nripjit Kaur in the evening claimed that according to a preliminary investigation there were violations of the GST norms while selling tickets and appropriate penalty would be imposed on organisers. 

Khali on the other hand claimed that he would not be able to pay any GST as he was already in the loss. “It will be difficult even to meet the expenditure incurred on the event what to say about paying taxes,” he said.

On providing security personnel at the event venue the Ropar SSP, Swapan Sharma, said that police was not supposed to charge money for security arrangements at the venue where large number of people had gathered for some event. 

Ropar Deputy Commissioner Sumeet Jarangal claimed that he wrote to the BBMB authorities to provide cricket ground and never dictated to provide it for free. However, the BBMB deputy chief engineer, Husan Lal Kamboj said, “The BBMB never allows any private event at the cricket stadium.” 

“Ropar DC using his administrative powers took over the stadium and asked us to handover the venue to event organisers free of cost,” he added.  The BBMB, however, put a condition to spare the stadium for the event that its free tickets would be provided to its employees, Kamboj said.