CBI files graft cases against 9 I-T officials, 3 Chartered Accountants

The agency has registered a case against Principal Commissioner Income Tax of Delhi S K Mittal, Additional Commissioner (exemption) Bangalore T N Prakash, Deputy Commissioner (Investigation) Chennai S Murali Mohan, Commissioner Chennai Vijayalakshmi, Additional Commissioner Mumbai S Pandian, Commissioner Mumbai G Lakshmi Baraprasad, Additional Director General Ghaziabad Vikram Gaur and Additional Director Mumbai Rajendra Kumar.

They have been booked under various sectiona of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency got a tip off that chartered accountant Sanjay Bhandari and his sons Shreyansh and Divyang were providing various favours to many Income tax officers across the country.  

It is alleged that these officials were availing favours including stay, conveyance and flight travel at the expense of the chartered accountant and his sons and helping him in the cases of his clients as quid pro quo.

“Many more officials are involved in the case and we are trying to trace them,” said the officer adding that a few other chartered accountants have also income tax officers on their “pay roll”. 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. The CBI found a deep rooted nexus between Bhandari and senior I-T officials who were allegedly giving favourable reports for his clients in lieu of favours received from him. #casansaar (PTI - New Indian Express)