The CBI has issued a grim press release which stated as follows:
CBI ARRESTS A PRINCIPAL COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX AND AN INCOME TAX OFFICER IN AN ALLEGED BRIBERY CASE OF Rs.10 LAKH
Press Release
New Delhi, 15.10.2015
The Central Bureau of Investigation has today arrested a Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Thiruvananthapuram and an Income Tax Officer, Thiruvananthapuram in an alleged bribery case of Rs.10 lakh (approx ).
A case was registered U/s 120-B of IPC r/w 7, 12, 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of PC Act, 1988 against Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Kottayam; an Income Tax Officer working in the office of CCIT, Thiruvananthapuram; a Chartered Accountant, Kottayam; a Proprietor of Kottayam based private Jewellery Company & a Managing Partner of company at Kottayam and unknown others in an alleged bribery of Rs.10 Lakh.
It was alleged that the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Thiruvananthapuram & also holding charge of PCIT, Kottayam had demanded Rs.10 lakh to give a favourable report on the Income Tax survey conducted on a jewellery shop based in Kottayam. The amount was to be delivered by the Chartered Accountant of the said shop to the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax through the partner of a construction company. CBI conducted searches and recovered Rs.10 lakh (approx) from the partner of the construction company.
Further, searches are being conducted at 9 places including Kottayam, Thiruvananthpuram & also few places outside Kerala at the office & residence of accused persons which led to recovery of several incriminating documents, files relating to the Assessments, computers, laptops, cellphones and cash of Rs. 12.5 lakh (approx).
The arrested accused were produced today before the Designated Court, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) and remanded to three days Police Custody.
The newspapers identified the arrested Principal Commissioner of Income Tax as being Mr. Anil Goel. It was also stated that the seized documents indicated that Anil Goel had accumulated disproportionate assets worth Rs 30 crore.
Would anyone enlighten where the matter is lying right now on 24 March 2018 ? All the arrangements and planning have been made for its death under the heaps of millions of useless papers.
It is high time for CBDT to take a meeting of the PCIT/CCIT to apprise them of the circumstances prevailing in the different regions especially NWR Delhi where high stakes are kept by the authorities
Any manual,circular, notifications are not going to work if the action taken by the field officer and review of their supervisory officer are not reviewed by senior officer. If on review the action is found to be deficient and not as per the act/order action should be initiated. Otherwise the officers will violet it with impunity since there is no accountability and action in case of deficiency
It is only a tip of the iceberg. 90% of the CIT(A) are corrupt – they are from the cadre of CITS. 90% of the officials are also corrupt. In such circumstances what suggestions could be made to improve A corrupt officer to supervise another corrupt. I feel the administration should be taken from the IRS and given to senior IAS officers with integrity. Some improvement could be expected from such move.
Sir, the procedure as laid down in Survey Manual issued by CBDT is comprehensive and , dare one say, ” foolproof “. However, implementation and ” interference ” by some CCITs causes problems. Though CBDT has directed that no effort should be made to ” extract confession/ surrender” from the party surveyed but these directions are merrily disregarded and thus valuable evidence is not taken into custody which would nail the surveyed party.
Rajeshji, I did not mean that there was no fool proof manual. What I meant was that the CBDT should evolve foolproof system of counter checking. The CBDT is issuing circulars / instructions but not following up. Surprising to note that it even initiated disciplinary proceedings in cases where the assessing officers had disregarded the confessional statements on the grounds of lack of evidentiary values like not executing oath, not recording the details of who recorded such confessional statements etc. Thus it is following double standard in its own actions.
Dear Shri Varaprasad ji, in the CBDT instructions disciplinary action has been threatened against officers who try to extract ” confession/ surrender” during survey. So indeed it is very surprising if CBDT has initiated disciplinary proceedings against officers who have not followed illegal “surrender/confession” extracted by survey officers without any evidence to back it up. The problem is that it used to be frequently told to us in private that “rules are for fools” and ” if you work for welfare of public, you will get a farewell very quickly”. Unfortunate part was that many a time these turned out to be true!!!
Dear Rajeshji, In my own case the CBDT had initiated disciplinary action. The brief facts are that 1. I disregarded an confessional statement by the person who recorded who did not sign as to the fact of recording the same. 2. The survey team (not by me) had evaluated the stock available in respect of the 2 sister concerns on the same day by the same party in two different methods. 3. The stock to be available was on estimate basis. 4. The survey team did not identify even a single item of purchase outside the books of account. 5. The survey team had checked the stock register which was written up to 2 days prior to the date of survey. 6. The charge that I did not invoke the provisions of section 69. Besides there are many other irregularities in the charge sheet. Main point was that the assessment done was subjected to action u/s 263 and dropped. Later after 6 years action u/s 148 was initiated by a range head subordinate to the CIT who passed orders u/s 263 dropping the action. The reassessments were quashed by the ITAT. Yet the CBDT had initiated disciplinary proceedings. Of course I did not fear for the same and I fought till the final reply. The decision of the great CBDT is awaited.
The procedure for a survey is that an assessing officer is to prepare a satisfaction note of the proposed survey of an assessee’s business, reviewed by the range head and approved by the Commissioner of Incometax. Survey are formed consisting more than 1 assessing officer and expected staff expected to meet the volume of work at the venue of the survey spots. All the teams and officers have to report to the range head and in turn to the Commissioner who approved the survey about the outcome and progress of each survey team. Finally a preliminary report is prepared and sent within 24 hours from the time of closure of survey consisting of their primary facts and details of stock inventory together with the tentative escapement of evasion found summarily. In view of this as seen from the news item, the higher authorities in the department are involving themselves right from the selection of cases, satisfaction notes etc. It is high time the CBDT should evolve a fool proof system of surveys as in the case of Search and Seizure operations.