CBI raids 3 I-T officers in Chennai

Chennai: Sleuths from the CBI on Wednesday raided premises belonging to three senior income tax officers working in Chennai in various capacities as part of their national wide operation against nine I-T officials.

Official sources identified the Chennai officers who were under CBI scanner as T.H. Vijayalakshmi, commissioner of income tax (audit), S. Murali Mohan, additional commissioner of income tax (corporate range II) and Aroon Prasad, deputy commissioner of income tax (exceptions).

The CBI has registered a case against nine senior Income Tax officials including principal commissioner income tax, Delhi S.K. Mittal and three private persons for allegedly indulging in corrupt practices. The sleuths carried out searches at 17 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Khammam.  

The agency has also registered case against income tax officials Mittal, additional commissioner (exemption) Bengaluru T.N. Prakash,  additional commissioner Mumbai S Pandian, commissioner (DR) ITAT Mumbai G. Lakshmi Baraprasad, additional director general Ghaziabad Vikram Gaur and additional director (investigation) Mumbai Rajendra Kumar, official  sources said.

A chartered accountant, Sanjay Bhandari from Chennai and his sons Shreyansh and Divyang are also named as accused in the case, the sources said. It is alleged that these officials were availing favours including stay, conveyance and flight travel at the expense of the chartered accountant and his sons and helping him in the cases of his clients as quid pro quo.

It may be recalled that CBI, anti-corruption branch, Chennai in January 2015 had caught Sallong Yaden, the then joint commissioner, Income-Tax, Range-VI, Nungambakkam, Chennai while he was accepting a bribe amount of '8 lakh from a chartered accountant Shreyans Bhandari, to give a favorable report on an I-T search at the office of a private company.