CBI arrests Mumbai CGST officer, two others ‘who confined businessman for 18 hours over Rs 60-lakh bribe’
September 8, 2024
Central Good and Services Tax officials allegedly confined a Mumbai businessman for 18 hours, assaulted and abused him and released him only after receiving a part of the bribe.
The CBI has booked six senior officials from the Central Good and Services Tax (CGST) department and two people including a chartered accountant for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe from a Mumbai-based owner of a biopharmaceuticals company.
The Central Bureau of Investigation said on Sunday that it also arrested a CGST (anti-evasion) superintendent from the Mumbai West commissionerate and two others in the case. They were allegedly caught accepting Rs 20 lakh, a part of the Rs 60 lakh demanded as a bribe. Rs 30 lakh of the bribe was allegedly paid earlier through a hawala transaction. The CGST officials had allegedly confined the complainant businessman and assaulted and abused him, demanding the bribe.
The agency has booked eight people in the bribery case. The accused are Additional Commissioner Deepak Kumar Sharma; Superintendents Sachin Gokulka, BijenderJanawa, Nikhil Agrawal and Nitin Kumar Gupta, all from CGST commissionerate in Mumbai West; Joint Commissioner Rahul Kumar; Chartered Accountant Raj Aggarwal; and Abhishek Mehta.
When the businessman, a Goregaon (West) resident, visited the CGST office in Santacruz on Wednesday evening, he was allegedly kept confined there the whole night and released the next day, after about 18 hours. One of the accused CGST superintendents demanded an Rs 80 lakh bribe for not arresting him. The bribe amount was subsequently reduced to Rs 60 lakh after a negotiation.
The three other CGST superintendents allegedly joined him in putting pressure on the businessman, repeatedly using force and hurling abuses. While in confinement, the businessman was allegedly made to call his cousin to convey the bribe demand in return for not arresting him and favouring him in an ongoing investigation by the CGST, according to the CBI.
The businessman’s cousin subsequently contacted the accused chartered accountant, who played a middleman’s role, and the other accused in the CBI case. Both the chartered accountant and the other private individual allegedly visited the CGST office during the night and negotiated the bribe with CGST officials. The CBI suspected they were acting in connivance with the CGST officials.
The bribe amount was thus finalised at Rs 60 lakh, to be delivered to the CGST officers through the chartered accountant. Only after his cousin allegedly paid Rs 30 lakh of the bribe through an angadia was the businessman allowed to leave the CGST office.
The CBI said they laid a trap and caught the chartered accountant red-handed while accepting Rs 20 lakh of the remaining bribe amount. The CBI said the private person accepted a part of the bribe and was to hand it over to the CGST officers.
One of the CGST superintendents called the accused private individual to meet him near Mumbai’s Oshiwara police station to collect the bribe. The CBI later arrested the superintendent.
All the three arrested accused were produced before the special CBI court in Mumbai, which remanded the CGST officer and the chartered accountant in CBI custody till September 10 and sent the private individual to judicial custody.
The CBI said it had seized incriminating documents during searches at nine locations including the official and residential premises of the accused people in and around Mumbai.
[The Indian Express]
