Senior income tax officer K V Chowdaryhas been appointed as the new member of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in the Finance Ministry. 

A 1978-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, Chowdary will look after Audit and Judicial charge in CBDT. 

He was till now serving as the Director General (Investigations) in the national capital and was heading a number of high-profile I-T probes, including the 2G spectrum allocation case and HSBC Geneva taxpayers list. 

With his appointment, the CBDT will function with full strength. It had a few vacancies for some time. 

The CBDT has six members apart from the Chairman and is the apex body for policy and administrative issues related to direct taxes and the Income Tax department. 

Chowdary is credited with initiating a host of new steps to enhance and build up the intelligence and investigation set up of the Income Tax department. A number of high profile searches and raids were carried out by Delhi investigations unit of the department during his tenure. 

He has earlier served as the I-T Chief Commissioner in Vishakhapatnam and Director (Investigations) in Nagpur. (PTI)