IT Officer, Chartered Accountant convicted for seeking Bribe during Demonetization

Arrest- Chartered Accountant

A Class-II Income Tax Officer (ITO) serving at Dahod along with a Chartered Accountant was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison on Wednesday for seeking bribe during the demonetisation in the year 2017.

The case similar to the one involving by a Class-I Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer posted at the Income Tax department in Ahmedabad some time ago.

Reportedly, Dinesh Lakhanlal Meena, serving as ITO in Dahod, was convicted for seeking a bribe of Rs. 65 lakh from a petrol pump owner for going easy against him and not scrutinising his land deals. Meena was handed a sentence of four years under Section 7 and another four years under section 13 (1)(G) and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. He was also fined Rs5,000. However, both the sentences will run concurrently, ACB officials said in Ahmedabad.

A Chartered Accountant Bharatkumar Agrawal was also convicted along with the Officer and one Lakshminarayan Meena, who happens to be Dinesh’s maternal uncle, who was instrumental in destroying evidence in the case.

The ITO was given the job of scrutinising suspicious dealings at petrol pumps which came to light in Rajkot in the aftermath of demonetisation on November 8, 2016.

The officer took the opportunity to seek a bribe from the complainant, Mukeshkumar Ramanlal Mori, a resident of Limdi in Surendranagar, who owned a petrol pump there. On March 9, 2017, after Meena looked into the number of land deals carried out by the complainant, he sought a bribe of Rs65 lakh through CA Bharatkumar Agrawal to hush up the issue, ACB officials said.

Mori paid the ITO Rs7 lakh as the first tranche of payment, but before paying the second tranche of Rs8 lakh, he approached the ACB and filed a complaint. The ACB set a trap to nab the accused, but Meena and his uncle escaped from the premises. The Chartered Accountant was arrested at that time.

 Officials said that Lakshminarayan Meena, the uncle, later destroyed the evidence in the case. The duo remained at large for months before being arrested and sent to jail, where they stayed without getting bail till their case came up for hearing and they were convicted on Wednesday. A special public prosecutor was appointed in the case. The money they received in bribes has not yet been recovered.

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