Punjab Finance, Planning, and Excise & Taxation Minister Advocate Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday announced that the State Government has significantly intensified its recovery drive against tax defaulters by officially commencing the public auction of properties belonging to chronic VAT and GST evaders. He said, "In a decisive move to reclaim long-pending state revenue, the Department of Excise and Taxation has successfully executed three major property auctions, recovering substantial sums from businesses and individuals who deliberately failed to discharge their tax liabilities despite being granted repeated opportunities and official legal notices."
Elaborating on the initial successes of this enforcement drive, Excise and Taxation Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that the first major property auction was successfully conducted in Mohali against the defaulter firm M/s Sumit Engineering, where the property was sold for ₹13.22 crore on June 19, 2026. He further said that another successful auction was carried out in Shahkot, Jalandhar, involving the property of M/s MR Rice Mills, which fetched a total of ₹1.11 crore.
The Minister said, "A sum of ₹3.58 crore has already been deposited by the successful bidders directly into the government treasury today, while the remaining balance will be legally recovered and deposited within the coming week as per established rules." According to Advocate Cheema, these initial successful auctions conducted across Mohali and Jalandhar clearly demonstrate the state's absolute resolve to enforce tax compliance without fear or favor.
The Finance Minister emphasised that these stringent recovery proceedings, which include the physical attachment and auction of properties, are a direct continuation of the Punjab Government’s earlier policy announcements. He made it clear that these aggressive actions are specifically targeted at chronic tax defaulters who stubbornly chose not to avail themselves of the massive relief benefits provided under the state's One Time Settlement (OTS) Scheme.
While maintaining a strict stance on tax evasion, Finance Minister Cheema said, " The Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann led Punjab Government’s primary objective is always the recovery of legitimate public money rather than purely punitive action."To facilitate voluntary compliance and give business owners a fair opportunity to resolve historical disputes, the Finance Minister announced that the Punjab Government has extended the One Time Settlement (OTS) Scheme up to July 31, 2026.
He said that this scheme provides a transparent and highly favorable mechanism for taxpayers with pending VAT liabilities to settle their outstanding dues quickly, thereby completely avoiding litigation, ongoing disputes, and coercive state action. Issuing a definitive warning to remaining evaders, the Excise and Taxation Minister Harpal Singh Cheema declared that the era of ignoring official tax demands and assuming that government dues will remain unrecovered has officially come to an end.
He revealed that the Excise and Taxation Department has already identified numerous properties belonging to habitual, chronic defaulters, and nearly 20 additional property auctions have already been scheduled across various districts in the coming weeks and months. He said, "The Excise and Taxation Department remains unyielding in its commitment to protecting public revenue, ensuring that thousands of honest, law-abiding taxpayers across Punjab are not placed at a financial or competitive disadvantage by a small group of wilful defaulters who actively avoid their legal duties."
The Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema warned that taxpayers who continue to disregard their legal obligations will face immediate and severe consequences, as the department actively pursues all available legal remedies, including the attachment of bank accounts, seizure of assets, and the public auction of both movable and immovable properties to secure every single rupee owed to the State of Punjab.