PUNE: Sleuths from the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested an inspector and a superintendent posted at the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Office, Pune, for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs one lakh from a complainant.
The accused were demanding the bribe for not issuing a notice to the complainant’s restaurant for not paying requisite service tax. The restaurant on the old Mumbai-Pune highway has AC as well as non-AC sections, and they were paying taxes for the AC only claiming non-AC section was exempted.
A case has been registered against Inspector Sanjeev Kumar and Superintendent Vivek Dekate, for offences under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant section of the Prevention of Corruption Act. On Tuesday, they were produced before a special court which remanded them to three-day police custody.
According to CBI, it was alleged in the complaint that both the accused demanded a bribe of Rs five lakh from the complainant for settling the service tax liability for the financial year 2016-17 and first quarter of 2017-18. The bribe amount was reduced to Rs three lakh after negotiations. The CBI laid a trap and caught the accused red-handed while demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs one lakh from the complainant, as the first installment of the total bribe amount of Rs three lakh. The complainant had recorded a conversation of talks regarding bribe payments.
A press release from CBI stated, “Searches were conducted at the office and residential premises of both the accused at Pune. During the searches, documents regarding the acquisition of movable and immovable properties, gold jewelleries, cash, computer hard disks and other incriminating documents were recovered.”
