{"id":6045,"date":"2015-12-12T13:23:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-12T07:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itatonline.org\/info\/?p=6045"},"modified":"2015-12-12T13:33:26","modified_gmt":"2015-12-12T08:03:26","slug":"income-tax-dept-remains-den-of-corruption-despite-anti-corruption-pledge-after-two-ccsit-jcit-held-for-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/income-tax-dept-remains-den-of-corruption-despite-anti-corruption-pledge-after-two-ccsit-jcit-held-for-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite \u201cAnti-Corruption Pledge\u201d, Income-Tax Dept Remains Den Of Corruption. After Two CCsIT, JCIT Held For Corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

In January 2013, the then Revenue Secretary solemnly declared that the department has decided to have \u201cZero tolerance for malpractice and corruption<\/a><\/em>\u201d. Thereafter, in October 2014, the department decided to administer the \u201cAnti-Corruption Pledge<\/a><\/em>\u201d to all officials with a view to sensitize them about the evils of corruption. <\/p>\n

However, all of this has proved to be eyewash because rampant corruption continues to flourish in the Income-tax department. <\/p>\n

In October 2015, it was reported as to how Sailendra Mamidi and Anil Goel<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n

Today, there is grim news<\/a> that Santosh Jangre, the Joint Commissioner of Income-tax, Mumbai, has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation<\/a> (CBI) for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs. 5 lakh from a real estate developer for not initiating action and \u2018settling<\/em>\u2019 an income tax matter.<\/p>\n

Santosh Jangre\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Jangre\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

It is worth noting that Santosh Jangre had earlier filed an application before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT)<\/a> against the Chief Commissioner and the Additional Commissioner in which he had alleged that the officials had \u201cmalice<\/em>\u201d and \u201cpersonal bias<\/em>\u201d against him and that he was being subjected to \u201cconsistent harassment<\/em>\u201d. In response, the authorities claimed that Jangre was not only \u201ccausing loss of revenue but was playing mischief with assessment records by manipulating, back dating order sheet entries, after passing assessment orders<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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 \u201cdemand of illegal gratification<\/em>\u201d is almost impossible to be proved, it effectively means that the accused are able to walk away scot-free. <\/p>\n

See also Dear NAMO Sir, Thanks For Acche Din But What About Corruption In I. T. Dept?<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has made the grim announcement that a high-ranking Joint Commissioner of Income-tax in Mumbai has been arrested for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs. 5 lakh from a real estate developer for not initiating action and \u2018settling\u2019 an income tax matter. The officer was earlier accused by the authorities of not only \u201ccausing loss of revenue but was playing mischief with assessment records by manipulating, back dating order sheet entries, after passing assessment orders<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-information","category-others"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}