BRIBERY CASE: CBI FILES chargesheet against GST Commissioner
The CBI has filed a charge sheet against Commissioner, Goods and Service Tax, Sansar Chand in a corruption case, a first against a senior officer of the department, officials said here.
Besides Sansar Chand, the agency had also arrested his wife Avinash Kaur in the case last month, and she has also been charge sheeted in the corruption case of receiving an alleged bribe of Rs 1.5 lakh from a Kanpur-based businessman, they said.
The Indian Revenue Service 1986batch officer then posted in Kanpur is the first senior officer of the GST department constituted last year to face charges of corruption from the CBI, they said.
The agency has charged him and his wife along with 13 others with criminal conspiracy and corruption among others.
While Sansar Chand was arrested on February 2, 2018, his wife was arrested on March 21, 2018, and was sent to judicial custody by the Special CBI court, Lucknow.
“The investigation revealed that Sansar Chand in criminal conspiracy with others was systematically collecting illegal gratification in lieu of various officials acts in connection to matters of Central excise department under its jurisdiction in Kanpur,” an official said.
The agency in a late night operation on February 2, 2018, had arrested two superintendents of the department (Ajay Shrivastav, R S Chandel), one personal staff (Saurabh Pandey) and five private individuals, including the owner of Shishu Soaps, in a late-night operation in Kanpur and Delhi.
Besides these, five more including the wife of the officer have been charge sheeted by the agency under the corruption charges; they said adding that 11 persons have been arrested.
The agency has alleged in the charge sheet that Sansar Chand along with his subordinates used to collect bribes on a monthly and quarterly basis from industrialists and businessmen, they said.
The bribes in cash were routed through hawala channels to Delhi through Aman Jain and Chander Prakash, both residents of Delhi, who used to deliver it to Chand’s wife, the CBI has alleged.