The Central Excise and Service Tax officials arrested the Chairman and Managing Director of an event management company here on Wednesday evening.

An official release said the company collected service tax of over ₹1.94 crore from April 2012 to June 2014 but not remitted the same to the government account. It said ₹1.16 crore of that amount was retained by the company for more than six months.

The service provider was produced before the Principal Civil Judge and Chief Judicial Magistrate, Mangalore, who remanded him to judicial custody. Further investigation is on, the release said.

The Commissionerate has initiated measures such as creating a data base of defaulting service tax assessees, approaching the judiciary for issuance of non-bailable warrants where the person summoned in connection with enquiry fails to appear etc to prevent tax evasion, the statement said.