Case:S K Srivastava, IRS(Retd) Vs CBI & Ors
Court-Allahabad High Court
Date-04/11/2020
Sub: Charges against the Commissioner (Appeals) u/s 120B and 420 of IPC and 482 of CrPC for various acts including antedating of 13 orders as well as deciding appeals which were not within his jurisdiction in collusion with a Chartered Accountant.

The Allahabad high court in the above case was dealing with an application challenging the charge-sheet, cognizance order and the consequential proceedings arising therefrom in relation to the allegation against the applicant, a (compulsory) retired official while posted as Commissioner Income Tax (Appeals) (for short ‘CIT(A)-I’), with additional charge of CIT(A)-II Noida, during December 2018 to 11 June 2019, indulged in acts of omission and commission adverse to the interest of revenue. The CIT(A) passed the orders in the capacity of an appellate authority by antedating i.e. after his retirement on 11 June 2019. The orders were uploaded on the ITBA system after demitting office. The date of hearing was deliberately not mentioned in the order-sheets of any of the 13 appeals, thereby, giving an opportunity to the applicant to antedate such orders, which were uploaded after demitting office. It is alleged that in the 13 appeals applicant caused wrongful loss at Rs. 7.26 crores to the revenue and commensurate wrongful gain to the assessee, co-accused and himself. It is further revealed during investigation that the appellate orders were typed by a private typist Shri Amar Kumar Das and his wife Smt. Nalni Parva Das who are not employees of the department. Further, one of the typist is class 9th pass and having no knowledge of English language nor of computer, laptop/desktop. The bills raised by the typist were processed on the directions of the applicant. The evidence and the material brought on record, prima facie, establishes that applicant abusing his position as Commissioner (Appeals) entered into criminal conspiracy with co-accused Anil Kumar (Chartered Accountant) as a public servant, obtained undue advantage for extraneous considerations, committed acts of commission and omission with mala fide intentions thereby causing wrongful loss to the department and wrongful gain to the assessees and himself. Thus the court having found prima facie case declined to interfere and let the matter proceed in the regular course.

In the digital era and faceless assessment these things will be probably thing of past.

Ramesh Patodia
20-11-2020