The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will soon come up with a reward of Rs one lakh for providing information on IRS officer Santosh Karnani who is absconding since October 4 after his name surfaced in Rs 30 lakh alleged bribery case, officials said.
Reportedly, CBI has also moved a special court seeking a warrant against the officer as he has “not joined the investigation” after four notices from the CBI, they said.
The income tax officer was allegedly involved in a bribery case when he was posted as Additional Income Tax Commissioner Class-I in Ahmedabad. After investigation, it was revealed that the income tax officer allegedly demanded Rs 30 lakh bribe from a builder on October 3 to be channelled through ‘Dhara Angadia Firm’ in the city.
Investigation started after the builder had complained to the Anti-Corruption Branch of Ahmedabad Police, which launched a trap operation on October 4, but the officer allegedly managed to give them a slip, they said.
Following this, Karnani was transferred to Guwahati nearly a week after the trap operation but he has not joined the office and is on “unauthorised leave”, they said. The Gujarat government handed over the matter to the CBI which has issued four notices so far but the officer did not join the investigation.
The CBI opened a look out circular against the 2005-batch IRS officer to prevent any misadventure and conducted searches at several locations, including his native place in Jaipur, they said.
During the probe, it had emerged that the officer was habitually seeking huge bribes, they alleged. The CBI has also found that Karnani, who was posted as Additional Income Tax Commissioner in Ahmedabad, was in the “Agreed List” of the government since 2015 yet he kept getting important postings in the department, they said.
They said the agency is also looking into the aspect as to how an officer in the agreed list was being given sensitive postings which brings under scanner the role of senior officers involved in the process.
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