5 Income Tax dept officials booked by CBI for extorting money from refund seekers
New Delhi, March 28 (IANS) Five officials of the Income Tax Department in Hyderabad and their aide have fallen in the CBI net for extorting money from income taxpayers, who had filed abnormally high tax refunds, by threatening them with hefty penalty, an official said on Friday.
The fraud involving nearly Rs 10 lakh was exposed when one of the taxpayee approached CBI, leading to the registration of FIR against tax officials — Quamar Aulam Khan, Manish Sikrawal, Gulnaz Rawoof, Kuthadi Srinivas Rao and Mohd. Javeed.
Bhagath Puliramidi (a private person) and unknown public servants and private persons were also named in the FIR registered for cheating.
“This source information revealed cognizable offences under sections u/s 420 IPC; 7 and 7A of the Prevention of Corruption Act by the Income Tax Officers,” said the FIR registered on Thursday.
The modus operandi adopted by the accused for the cheating in 2023 involved sending emails to tax payees from official email IDs directing them to submit documents in support of the refund claimed.
The FIR said one of the tax officials used to call up the refund seekers and ask them to respond to the email seeking documents.
“The Income Tax Officers Quamar Aulam Khan, Manish Sikrawal, Gulnaz Rawoof, Kuthadi Srinivas Rao and Mohd. Javeed telephoned the taxpayers/assessees directly over mobile phone and asked them to respond to the email they received regarding refund issues,” said the FIR.
“They threatened the assesses with hefty penalties if they did not respond immediately. In the guise of levying penalty on refund claimed by the assessees, the IT officers demanded bribe,” said the FIR.
The CBI FIR noted that the Income Tax officers used the word “penalty” to make the assessees believe that they were paying only penalty, but not bribe.
After an assessee agreed to pay the penalty, the I-T officers put them on to their aide P. Bhagath who collected the bribe on the pretext of rectifying the IT returns, said the FIR.
In another case, the CBI registered two cases on March 25 against a former Branch Manager of State Bank of India, Ramakrishnanagar Branch, Karimganj, Assam (accused in both cases), and two private persons (one each in two cases) on allegations of bank fraud and corruption/bribery.
It was alleged that the accused Branch Manager, in conspiracy with some middlemen, disbursed Xpress Credit Loans to various ineligible borrowers during 2023-24 in lieu of undue advantage/bribe, which were allegedly collected by the two accused middlemen and unknown others from the borrowers.
Searches were conducted by the CBI at premises of the aforesaid accused at four locations, including Gaya (Bihar), Hailakandi (Assam), two places at Silchar (Assam), which led to the recovery of substantial quantities of ornaments/jewellery (Gold – 481 gm, Diamond – 11.11 gm and Silver – 1,092.80 gm) from the residential premises of accused Branch Manager at Silchar, Assam.
Various incriminating documents such as transaction details with middlemen, Bills/Invoices of purchasing of ornaments, documents related to the Xpress Credit, some electronic devices including drive of computer, mobile phone and tablet were also recovered during searches, said a CBI statement.
–IANS
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