A principal commissioner of Income Tax department was on Wednesday arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation for fraud, criminal conspiracy and allegedly propping a hawala racket, said sources, adding his three departmental colleagues and some other operatives were also arrested in an early morning raid that yielded at least Rs 4 crore from the I-T top officials residence at Salt lake in Kolkata.
The CBI conducted simultaneous raids at 23 locations across Kolkata and Ranchi following allegations of graft and criminal conspiracy. The official was posted in Jharkhand but extended his “business” to Kolkata and other places sources maintained.
The Indian Revenue Services officer Tapan Kumar Dutta was subsequently taken into custody as he could not explain the source of cash, all found in new currency notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 stashed away at various places inside his house, sources said.
Notes were found inside the bathroom, shoe rack, mattress, rice sack and other places officials said adding Dutta was taken into custody as he “failed to explain the cash.” Another person was arrested from Alipore locality and Rs 1.5 crore in new currency notes were seized from his residence, sources said. Raids were also conducted at Posta-Burrabazar area, which is incidentally the largest wholesale market in Asia.
Dutta and three other I-T officials had allegedly conspired with other private persons including chartered accountants to give shape to their unlawful acts officials maintained adding “more interrogation is needed to find out the depth of the conspiracy.”
The accused it was said were also associated with some kind of hawala racket and helped legalise black money by floating a number of fake companies besides sending them out to foreign locations, sources said.
The raids were conducted against the backdrop of survey reports published earlier this year by the Transparency International which showed India had earned the ominous distinction of occupying the first position in terms of bribery among the Asia Pacific nations.
India was followed closely by Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Myanmar and China with Japan failing perhaps on one rare occasion to defeat the others even as it stood at the bottom of the table.