The Anti-Corruption Bureau has arrested an income tax officer in a bribery case on Thursday. The officer was caught red-handed while demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 25,000 from a complainant at Anantapur.
Sources said that the accused is A Raja Sekhar, an office superintendent at Ward 3 office, Anantapur. According to reports, one Niranjan Babu, an auditor based in Anantapur, filed a complaint with the ACB claiming that Rajasekhar had demanded Rs 25,000 as a bribe for processing his request to refund 20 percent Income Tax refund already deposited by his client.
The auditor’s client had received a notice from the income tax department to pay income tax on capital gains shown in the Income Tax returns for the assessment year 2012-13. The income tax officer of Ward 3 passed orders on December 4, 2017, asking Veeranjaneyulu to pay income tax of Rs 10,45,230 lakh on capital gains.
Then, Veeranjaneyulu approached Niranjan who made an appeal to the commissioner of income tax (appeals), Kurnool, on behalf of him and deposited 20 percent of the demanded tax Rs 2,09,046 to the IT department as per rules. On November 26, the appellate authority passed orders favorable towards Veeranjaneyulu and stated that there was no need to pay the disputed income tax of Rs 10,45,230.
Based on the orders, Niranjan on behalf of his client sought the reimbursement of Rs 2.09 lakh deposited to the IT department for which Rajasekhar demanded the amount. The accused officer was arrested and produced before ACB Court, Kurnool, officials added.
This is the second time that the ACB officials trapped a Central government employee after general consent was withdrawn to the CBI by the State government.
