₹70 lakh bribery scandal: Two more Jhansi CGST officials under CBI lens

Jhansi CGST officials allegedly demanded ₹1.5 crore from a trader in exchange for favourable handling of GST matters. A trap was laid on December 30 and two superintendents were caught allegedly accepting ₹70 lakh

Two senior officers at the Jhansi Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) office were informed of the ₹70 lakh bribery scandal before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) stepped in late last month, sources said.

(For representation)

According to them, the trader who was allegedly being extorted had approached the two officers with a complaint prior to contacting the CBI. Though they reportedly assured him that action would be taken, investigators said no enforcement step, search, or report to department headquarters followed.

The agency was now collecting call records, departmental files and witness statements to assess whether the inaction was deliberate. The two officers are expected to be questioned soon.

The case stems from a CBI operation on December 31, 2025, that led to the arrest of deputy commissioner Prabha Bhandari, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer posted in Jhansi, along with superintendents Anil Tiwari and Ajay Kumar Sharma, advocate Naresh Kumar Gupta (alleged intermediary), and trader Raju Mangtani of Jai Durga Hardware.

The agency registered the case a day earlier after receiving inputs that CGST officials had been demanding ₹1.5 crore from a trader in exchange for favourable handling of GST matters. Acting on this, the CBI laid a trap on December 30 and caught the two superintendents allegedly accepting ₹70 lakh — the first instalment of the bribe.

During interrogation, the arrested officers allegedly implicated Bhandari as the key conspirator. Investigators claimed that when one superintendent informed her over a monitored phone call that the money had been received, she responded positively and instructed that the cash be converted into gold and delivered to her. The call was being treated as a crucial piece of evidence.

Searches at multiple premises linked to the accused, including her residence, led to the seizure of about ₹1.60 crore in cash, gold, silver, jewellery and property-related documents, officials said. The recoveries have helped investigators trace the suspected money trail.

The CBI believed that the accused officials misused their authority to initiate GST enforcement actions and then offered to “manage” cases in return for bribes, allegedly operating with the help of intermediaries. Investigators were now reviewing past GST proceedings and enforcement actions in Jhansi and other parts of Uttar Pradesh to determine whether the network extended further.