In a countrywide operation, the CBI on Wednesday conducted searches at 17 locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Khammam in connection with a case relating to alleged corruption by nine senior Income Tax officials.
The agency 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.
Those against whom case has been registered are Mittal, Additional Commissioner (exemption) Bangalore T N Prakash, Deputy Commissioner (Investigation) Chennai S Murali Mohan, Commissioner (Audit-2) Chennai Vijayalakshmi, Additional Commissioner Mumbai S Pandian, Commissioner (DR) ITAT Mumbai G lakshmi Baraprasad, Additional Director General (Systems-4) Ghaziabad Vikram Gaur and Additional Director (Investigation) Mumbai Rajendra Kumar, agency sources said.
The agency has also booked a Chartered Accountant Sanjay Bhandari and his sons Shreyansh and Divyang, the sources said.
These accused officials were allegedly availing favours including stay, conveyance and flight travel at the expense of the chartered accountant and his sons and as a quid pro quo helped him in favourable settlement of the cases of his clients.
Besides the IT officials, residential and official premises of Bhandari were also searched.
The CBI recovered documents related to properties worth Rs 2.6 crore, cash of Rs 16 lakh, 4.25 kg of gold jewellery besides 13 kg of silver articles during searches at the premises of one of the officials, officials said.
From another official's premises, Fixed Deposit Receipts worth Rs 68 lakh were recovered. The recoveries could yield much more as the searches continued till filing of the report.
The present case stemmed from another case registered by the agency in January, 2015 in which Bhandari was named along with Joint Commissioner Sallong Yaden who was arrested while allegedly 'receiving' the bribe amount from Shreyans Bhandari of SH Bhandari and Co, Chartered Accountants.
Yaden had allegedly demanded and accepted the bribe for giving a 'favourable' report on the Income Tax search conducted on a city-based private company, the CBI said.
During the probe, CBI found a deep rooted nexus between Bhandari and senior Income Tax officials who were allegedly giving favourable reports for his clients in lieu of favours received from him.
The CBI registered a fresh case after putting them on surveillance for about a year.
After due scrutiny of the seized documents, disproportionate assets may also follow.
The accused officials will be called soon for questioning.