In January 2013, the then Revenue Secretary solemnly declared that the department has decided to have “Zero tolerance for malpractice and corruption”. Thereafter, in October 2014, the department decided to administer the “Anti-Corruption Pledge” to all officials with a view to sensitize them about the evils of corruption.
However, all of this has proved to be eyewash because rampant corruption continues to flourish in the Income-tax department.
In October 2015, it was reported as to how Sailendra Mamidi and Anil Goel, both high-ranking Chief Commissioners of Income-tax, allegedly used their vast powers to arm-twist hapless taxpayers and coerce them into paying them huge bribes.
Today, there is grim news that Santosh Jangre, the Joint Commissioner of Income-tax, Mumbai, has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs. 5 lakh from a real estate developer for not initiating action and ‘settling’ an income tax matter.
Santosh Jangre’s alleged modus operandi was similar to that practiced by others. He reopened the assessment of the assessee and allegedly threatened him with a tax demand of Rs. 1.20 crore. Jangre demanded a bribe of Rs. 30 lakh and negotiated it down to Rs. 25 lakh. The first installment of Rs. 5 lakh was to be paid on Thursday.
Unfortunately for Santosh Jangre, the disgruntled taxpayer was so upset about the incident that he complained about it to the CBI. The CBI laid a trap.
Jangre directed the taxpayer to come with the money to a place near a Hanuman temple near his office in Piramal Chambers. Jangre asked the taxpayer to step out of his car and made him to sit in his official car. After the money switched hands, he drove the car to some distance and asked the taxpayer to get off. Then, as he was speeding away, the CBI sleuths intercepted his car and caught him red-handed with the bribe money.
The CBI has alleged that Santosh Jangre has amassed huge assets. He was reported to have two flats and a commercial property in the posh Hiranandani area of Powai, with their cost running into several crores. The CBI also found 1.5 kg of gold and documents relating to mutual funds and fixed deposits running into several lakhs. More searches are underway.
Jangre’s explanation appears to be that both of his kidneys have malfunctioned and he requires a kidney transplant. The bribe money was probably collected towards that purpose even though as a high-ranking employee of the Central Government, he is entitled to free treatment in the best hospitals.
It is worth noting that Santosh Jangre had earlier filed an application before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) against the Chief Commissioner and the Additional Commissioner in which he had alleged that the officials had “malice” and “personal bias” against him and that he was being subjected to “consistent harassment”. In response, the authorities claimed that Jangre was not only “causing loss of revenue but was playing mischief with assessment records by manipulating, back dating order sheet entries, after passing assessment orders”.
Unfortunately, though a number of high-ranking officials have been caught red-handed in the past, there is no update on what has happened in these cases. Instead, the judgement of the Supreme Court in P. Satyanarayana Murthy vs. Dist. Inspector of Police provides relief to the accused because it provides that the mere possession and recovery of currency notes from an accused is not sufficient to establish an offense under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Proof of demand of illegal gratification is essential. Its absence is fatal to the complaint. As “demand of illegal gratification” is almost impossible to be proved, it effectively means that the accused are able to walk away scot-free.
LET THE COURTS RULE THAT TAKING MONEY IS THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF GOVT. TAX OFFICIAL SO THAT MATTERS CAN BE SETTLED FOREVER BY STARTING “TATKAL JUSTICE “SYSTEM.
Why have you not suggested Rate Board for various services? By Rules they can also fix MRP – minimum as well maximum. TATKAL JUSTICE SYSTEM is already prevalent in the Incometax Department ; and most of the officers are sharing the loot. In the Rules it should also be provided that some percentage of the loot should also be shared with the exchequer.
DCIT rajesh hisar ito satbir ito omparkash ito poonam at hisar are doing huge corruption by settling with assessee illegally but no whistleblower is allowed any where to complaint if whistleblower from the same department.it officers are the new age dictator and no body can challenge them as no provision i found which can check and verify their black files of cases and raids with corruption
Well done CBI ; congratulations. There are so many such corrupt officers who are bringing bad name to the Income tax Department. Sometimes I feel ashamed that I belonged to this respected cadre of IRS. Main reason is that the higher-ups who are supposed to exercise vigilance control are not doing their duties properly ? Most of these Vigilance Officers are themselves corrupt. A time is not far away when persons retiring may have to pay Bribe to get their pension papers prepared ?
When such act will apply to Judiciary , Judges / Justices of High Court? I have posted may mails to Courts but nothing in news.!!!
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday registered a case against a top Income Tax official and eight others, including his family members, on charges of possessing disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 6.1 crore.
Surprise checks
Based on specific inputs, the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Branch conducted surprise checks on the premises of M. Krishnaswamy, a 1988-batch officer of the Indian Revenue Service, who is working as Director (Investigation), Settlement Commission. Earlier, he was Commissioner of Income Tax, CBI sources said.
The allegation is that the accused had amassed wealth by acquiring huge assets in the name of immediate family members and several benami persons in Chennai, Palani and other places across Tamil Nadu.
CBI teams conducted simultaneous checks at 14 places in the State, which led to recovery of documents relating to property worth several crores, locker details, investments in shares and private firms. The other accused allegedly abetted the official in the commission of the offence.
The agency registered a case against the accused under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and IPC, the sources said. CBI officials could not be reached to ascertain the specific charges levelled against the IT official and how they calculated the quantum of the alleged disproportionate assets.
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Yes Sirs, All are correct. This reminds me just about 20 years back experience. When I filed Income Tax Returns of my Client about 6 Returns in one ward. Along with Return receipt clerk I T O was sitting. He just took out all Returns .Started abusing the Community , they are filing wrog returns of Income. It was a case of simple interest income from Deposits with various Firms. He started abusing client name of community and gave me a notice for filing defective Returns, saying that along with Return of Income Income and Expenditure account has to be filed with Balance Sheet and all.!!!! Immediately on the other day I gave very detailed reply stating all Facts and Quotation of Income Tax Act , defective returns. Also said that all the Returns are correct and not defective. There is / was no further communications from the ITO??? His purpose was not served at all.
These are also a category of Income Tax Officer also.
Yes Sirji,
But inspight of having made complaint to Hon. SUpreme Court of India with all documentary evidences , which is /was prima facie against the Code of Civil Procedure code and Provisions of Law , ignoring all facts on record , so far no action???!! Only way left i Appeal, Appeal and Appeals till you die???! Have they code of conduct, “When on oath taken to be free and fearless, imparital, Law abiding and much more” . When there is a law naturally it should be taken on record. Without taking any affidavit in reply on record passing the order on Petition and not only this but ignoring the Law of Land which is written in Petition???! What more???!!!
Dipankar the govt machinery is too huge . It moves very very slow .In the process there is delay and justice gets denied ,I need to appreciate the move by the CBDT and doubly of the President of the ITAT for his proactive stance taken .I think the Supreme court needs to step in to ensure litigation does not fail the judicial system .It is true no man should be punished till found guilty. That does not give the judiciary to render justice slowly.Till Goa was freed in about 1961 people could sleep with the doors open .The justice rendered was quick and brutal . It helped in keeping the law and order .I am not advocating brutality as a substitute but the learned judges need to step in to provide a quick relief to the citizen. Till then I shall pray for you Dipanker . When will a King Solomon come to India .
Sirji,
My concern is at High Court Level. Not lower level.You are talking about the Lower Level.
Shah D J
One judge of the supreme court was impeached by the parliament
No where else the people from the services are treated as badly as they are as in India.it is a babu raj.No doubt in every civil society it is said the penis mightier than the sword But let a word of caution be said that if the pen is not used with care it will give rise to discontent with attendent turbulence
A typo error has set in No doubt …….mightier than …
read No doubt in every civil society it is said that the pen is mightier ……..
Mine is pure joke. Inadvertant Typo Error also conveys something ? PENIS is responsible for many ills of the society to a greater extent ?
A genuine typo has been blown out of proportion!!.That is the problem with all I T officials . They see a snake(now don’t misinterpret) in every return .Let us give thanks to the creator for the heavenly pleasure and peace that it provides too!! The bad name is brought about by the corrupt people who take vicarious pleasure by their abusive acts
They use their corrupt imaginative skills to decipher that some thing which is not there with no success( the percentage of success at the appeal stage is a measly less than 1 percent).
While I was an assessing officer I just did an exercise to know what is the addition tax that the officials of the department made with a huge staff ..It was just one percent. But one skill full traffic police man on the road does show his effect at a junction.If that one police man is corrupt heavens grant us peace. That is what ails the department now .The top administrators are very corrupt.CBI action in the recent past bears sufficient testimony to my statement.
SOME OF THE BABUS ARE BORN WITH CORRUPTION IN THEIR HANDS/MOUTH.YOU CAN NOT ERADICATE THE CORRUPTION,WHICH PERMANENTLY EMBEDDED IN THEIR BLOOD.
Babu’s are born with pen(s) in their mouth to ensure that nothing moves as long as they are there . They will not allow anything to go ahead till they are paid their dues.
If we want to eradicate, Mr Narendra Modi , corruption from all and every where and Black Money , why Judiciaary has been kept a bar from CVC, C B I and why there is no operating body than only APPEAL , Appeal And nothing more till you die.>>???!!!!
Sri. Dipakkumarji. The CBI is not sparing even the judiciary. It happened in Hyderabad when the then JD, CBI trapped the Judge of a CBI Court with well framed work out. The said judge had been arrested and kept in jail. Of course he is on bail. The case is still live in CBI cases.
No wonder this JCIT is down with kidneys.. Karma is bitch. This is high season during which Assessments are framed at every month end plus Searches & Surveys are misused to extort money. All the litigation is in tax courts just because Assessee did not butter the asses of IT staff (for whatever reason. Malpractices of Assessees are brought on record in assessment only when “Party is NOT co-operative”
But my question is that , Openly, who cares for corruption in Judiciary ? My own dictionary meaning of corruption ” Not to take any action amounts to corruption”. There no C B I , C V C Inquiry in to ?? All the orders passed in the Name of Chief Justice. Do they go through all contents? I have observed in my cases that what is written in Petition , case papers are never seen and also recorded in Judgment / Order , but some thing else is written which is on record and no documentary evidence ??? Even on oath wrong is taken Granted!!!!! No action!!!???
Perhaps they are following “CUT & PASTE” formula. You can change this to “PAY & CARRY”. This is the reason as to why every Corrupt person is showing faith in the judiciary. They know Money makes mare go.
Govt. should encourage people to approach CBI/ACB with the promise that the Complainant will not be harassed. Govt. should publish E-mail addresses of all CBI offices (Anti-corruption Wings) in all the leading News papers. Anti-corruption pledge is an annual Ritual , and is wastage of time. When any one is arrested the concerned official should be Removed from service under Rule 56(j) of the FR and all his Pensionary Benefits should be freezed till disposal of the case by the Trial Court. If need be definition of CORRUPTION should be changed. Very few Honest persons are left in the IT Department and they are side tracked. If CBI/ACB do their duty sincerely more that 50 % IT officers may be behind bars. Central Govt. employees are getting Free Medical Treatment in the best hospitals in India. If both the kidneys of Jangre are damaged, he should compulsorily retired as invalid person has no place in any Govt. department.
If one sees the 5 news items quoted above this thread reveals that the medium and top bureaucrats in the Incometax department are tending to become more and more corrupt. The top direct taxes administrator i.e. CBDT has become more inefficient. Now I request the Secretary cadre in Finance Ministry to pay attention to the happenings in CBDT / CBCE.
I have served under some corrupt persons who retired as Members of the CBDT and Settlement Commission. If there is corruption at the TOP, who will take action ? Govt. is not sincere about takling corruption and is merely giving sermons.
Dear Shri Vaghela Sirji, They are only promoted ???!!! Not like a simple person. They are capable of handling all and every thing. God bless them.
One Justice Mr D H Vaghela was in Gujarat High Court. During the course of as a part of discussion , I was asked in a case ” What is your qualification Mr Shah”. I answered ” Chartered Accountant”. Immediately started writing / dictating order, Mr Shah appeared as a Chartered Accountant.??? See the culture of difference. Yes man can get success and promotion.
Well said Sir. I have spent over 47 years in the tax office at delhi and have been visiting areas around to represent tax cases of my clients. There is no sincere effort to kill this corruption in the tax department. Today it is such that if the AO is being honest enough not to seek any gratification, he insists that his staff is adequately “tipped”
When you are talking about Police Station…… In my one case Hon. Judge order for Police Inquiry……. For more than 3 years file was not sent to for Police Inquiry for Fraud in accounts…………….Then all of a sudden some one wake up and dismissed my case !!!!! without Police Inquiry. You can appreciate the situation and position. Bench clerk did not processed for sending for Police Inquiry at all for all these years.!!!!Where are we going and ahead of …….
I would say that it has touched to , which can not be written inany Public Forum. You can very well understood my meaning ther by. It is not left out!!! There is no provision for taking care of by Vigilance , C B I or so. At Lower level you might have heard of name and authority. But not at Higher level !!!
God save us from all. That is why it is told that no body should enter the steps of ……………….
God save us.
When midas touch will be given to Steps of……. ?
Even oath is taken Free, Fearless , Impartial, Law Abiding and much more in words…. I have full experience of last 25 years which can not be written in all Public Forums……………
Yes. It is true that corruption is everywhere especially in revenue and works departments. However, there are efforts to reduce the same with the help of technology. I remember the time when it is difficult to receive refund from Income tax without paying a bribe of at least 20% of the refund amount. This is now became a history in substantial cases due to creation CPC Bengluru. Hence the area of corruption for IT servants got restricted to scrutiny matters. I am practicing since last 10 years into taxation and during my small career I remember only 2 cases where bribe is not paid from our side. In 1st case, I met the honest officer who did his work efficiently and about 5 visits the order is passed with appropriate tax liability. The other is a worst example of my carrier. Every question was answered appropriately. Yet the ITO made demand for money which was not agreed. Due to our reluctance, he suddenly becomes efficient. He then applied his creative mind. Scrutinized all bank statements in detail. Accumulate cash deposits which are of normal business transactions of the assessee, Summarized temporary advances by director shareholders and raised a tax demand of Rs. 2 crore apart from penalty. In this case the declared profitablity of Rs. 10 lacs over a turnover of 2 crores and tax liability due to temp advances comes to 8 lacs. Other than that, everything else is creativity. The case went to CIT Appeals and assessee got that relief before CIT (A) with the help of other tax practioner. No need to say that both these experience belongs to my initial period of practice. Latter on I have no choice but to go according to clients instructions.
According to my experience till date, honest tax payers will be sufferers if their case is selected for scrutiny and every other taxpayer is more than happy to find his assessments getting cleared with nominal tax demands.
Recently I experienced another example of shamelessness of these national workers. One of our Foreign client had exempt income and due to misinterpretation or to say extra cautiousness, one of the service provider deducted TDS. The return was filed by the client declaring nil income and refund of entire TDS amount which is correct according to Income tax Law. The case was selected for scrutiny. In the first two hearings ITO came to know that it is clear case and the entire TDS is to be refunded. Yet he went to take on more hearings to collect other details about the client which, in our view, irrelevant. Since no offer was made to him, he finally come up with the demand which we tactfully postponed. At the last hearing he even asked us to prepare draft assessment orders for him. Even after doing that he passed that order at the due date of finishing assessment process. and within that also he made deliberate error of not giving credit for the TDS amount since we have not met his demands. On pointing out the same he advised to file rectification application. Even that is not processed for about 6 months down the line. Till the assessment level we had hold the client but after passing the orders he was anxious and directed us to do whatever necessary to get the refund amount. Here in this case even the approving superior authority, holding a good rank in the department, also demanded a bribe as per our wish just to approve that payment. This case is another worst example for us when we decided not to bribe. Had we done that earlier, the client would have got its due fund within a period of 6 months to a year. However, due to our approach of not paying bribe, he received refund after 4.5 years and that too after paying bribe.
All these experiences suggests that it is very difficult to be in tax practice if you don’t intend to meet IT servant demands. If you do, you will be having a good practice by establishing solid contacts with these servants who are being regularly transferred from one location to other.
I have a suggestion to minimize this corruption issue. As per the existing practice, Tax auditor is appointed by the Assessee who submits his report to the tax department on behalf of assessee. My practical experience suggest that hardly any importance was given to the tax audit during assessment proceedings. It was only reviewed for the negative points, if any and if there is nothing then scrutiny proceedings will take place keeping that report aside. This may be right approach but if it be then the whole purpose of conducting tax audit is lost. For the practitioners like us, it creates a difficult situation to point out any irregularity observed in detailed review. According to the client, he will face problem only when we report negatively in respect of any questions in the tax audit report. If we do not agree, we have no option but to forget that assignment. And if we decide to do that we will find such cases in plenty so that we are forced to accommodate clients. Had the appointment being made by the Government directly and we are answerable only to the Government for our report and not the client, this situation could have been easily avoided. This will certainly reduce the tax compliance problem of our country as being a professional we will take appropriate care in preparing our report. This will substantially reduce the scrutiny burden of the department as the AIR information can be correlated with the income declared and tax payments made. Even in cases selected for scrutiny, due attention to be paid to the report of tax auditor, If anything finds incorrect then heavy fine to be levied for intentional mistakes in reporting. Even here the transparency has to be maintained in allotment of tax audit cases.
This may not eradicate corrupt practices but at least bring some relief to the common man just like a step of creating CPC.
I agree with your thoughts.
The present incident is good example, wherein the IT Commissiners though raided and cought tothetune ofRs. 6.1 CRS, got Scot free??? As if the excess money was bestowed from hevan.
The worst part is the judiciary is an instrumental to it in a way that the matter might,/must have been presented is such a manner that the culprits will be scot-free.
The need of the day is a fast track court to decide corrupt people.Commissioners in the past have been caught red handed.and the cases are still going on.They have been caught with crores of rupees in cash but are still working In the department in posts which are insignificant.most of these cases are more than 12 years old.On some technical ground they get relief like in the case of Satyanarayana quoted above.I know of cases where prone have been dismissed from service for a mere bribe of Rs20.and also postal employees discharged from their duties for not delivery of letters!!!!It is aptly said Law is a cobweb where in mosquitoes get caught and beetles go through!!!
For prone read peon
incidentally both finance ministry and home ministry is situated in North Block in New Delhi
Recently the police arrested a newly recruited probationeron charge of sexual improprieties at the NADT campus.The decision of the Delhi high court in 2014 where Mr Ramjethmalani argued the case of MrSK Srivastav a 1987 recruit leaves much to be desired of officials who man the CBDT.The level of corruption is also mentioned in the judgment.in the next post I shall give the citation of the case .It does not show the administration in good light.
The citation is cont.app. (c)1/2013.there is also another case
http://www.bhadas4media.compdf/dhfinalorder.pdf
And W.P.. (C))7977/2011 dated 17 feb2014
p k mishra vs acit itcirle40 (1) in the high of Delhi at New delhi.
The purpose of scrutiny to collect tax (generate more revenue considering the case of the assessee/wrong claim either of reason by mistake or intentionally)as per the provisions of the Act. But these are the officers who go wrong way create presser on honest tax payers create heavy demands and ignore the cases of corrupt business men accepting heavy bribe (resolution fee) with the help of corrupt professionals.
Why this happen is ever taken seriously by our Government or the Board or the Ministry…………… even the Government support to all corrupt men, selecting them for higher post. Even in Judiciary approved the name of those persons who paid for their post and not the honest selected by the selection board and recommended their name for selection.
Yes, it is true Income tax offices are dens of corruption.
Not only that Police Stations all over India are also dens of corruption.
If the Finance Ministry and Home Ministries are listening?