Govt retires 21 more ‘corrupt’ tax officers

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 26

The government has retired 21 Group B officers of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) under Fundamental Rule 56 (J) in public interest due to their alleged involvement in corruption and other charges, said sources in the Finance Ministry here today.

At least 64 tax officers have been shown the door in the last four reviews with the last one being in September when 15 Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) official were compulsorily retired.

The officers retired in the fifth round include three from the CBDT’s Mumbai office, two from Thane district besides others who were posted in Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Rajahmundry, Hazaribagh, Nagpur, Rajkot, Jodhpur, Madhopur, Bikaner, Bhopal and Indore.

Source referred to PM Narendra Modi’s observations made earlier in this regard that “some black sheep in the tax administration may have misused their powers and harassed taxpayers. We have recently taken the bold step of compulsorily retiring a significant number of tax officials, and we will not tolerate this type of behaviour.”

The source said several officers retired compulsorily were at the receiving end of CBI traps. They include officials such as Rajasiri, B. Srinivasa Rao, G. Venkateswara Rao and Lakshmi Neeraja.

It claimed that Rajasiri was trapped receiving Rs 1.5 lakhs, a recovery of Rs 75,000 was made from B. Srinivasa Rao in addition to Rs 30,000 during the trap operation and Lakshmi Neeraja was charged with demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 20,000.

Another official Preetha Babukuttan allegedly abused her official position and accepted Rs 75,000 as illegal gratification while Madhavi Chavan was accused of demanding Rs 6 lakh and was caught red-handed while accepting a bribe. Anil Mallel had allegedly connived with a colleague Pankaj Garg and the CBI found of Rs 2.75 lakh from Mallel’s possession.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)