GST officials held for kidnapping, extortion from businessman
Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three accused, including a Central Goods and Service Tax (anti-evasion) superintendent from Mumbai, in connection with a Rs 60 lakh bribery case.
The CBI made the arrests for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe from a Mumbai-based owner of a biopharmaceuticals company. 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, officials said.
The CSGT officials allegedly confined the businessman for 18 hours, assaulted and abused him and released him only after receiving a part of the bribe.
As per an FIR filed by the complainant, the CBI registered a case against eight accused, including six officers of CGST, Mumbai. The accused are Additional Commissioner Deepak Kumar Sharma; Superintendents Sachin Gokulka, Bijender Janawa, Nikhil Agrawal and Nitin Kumar Gupta, all from CGST commissionerate in Mumbai West; Joint Commissioner Rahul Kumar; Chartered Accountant Raj Aggarwal; and one Abhishek Mehta.
Gokulka, Aggarwal and Mehta were arrested when they were allegedly receiving part payment of Rs 20 lakh as bribe, said CBI officials.
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 Mehta to judicial custody.
It was alleged that 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.
Only after his cousin allegedly paid Rs 30 lakh of the bribe through an angadia (hawala) 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, on behalf of CGST officers, 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.
“They were arrested while accepting a part bribe amount of Rs. 20 lakh, out of the negotiated undue advantage of Rs 60 lakh demanded as bribe. An amount of Rs 30 lakh of the total bribe amount was allegedly paid earlier through Hawala,” CBI officials said.