After CBI’s bribery case against 6 CGST officials, CGST to install CCTVs in all offices

CGST Mumbai implements new measures, including CCTV installation and strict summons protocols, to combat corruption after a ₹50 lakh bribery case.

MUMBAI: Three weeks after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked six officials of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) in an alleged ₹50 lakh bribery case, the CGST, Mumbai zone, has introduced a slew of preventive–vigilance measures aiming to curb acts of corruption and arbitrary conduct at its offices.

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The CGST has decided to equip all its offices with CCTV units, its officials will have to keep top officials, of the rank of commissioner, in the loop while issuing summonses and warrants during an assessment proceeding and taxpayers/ assessee must be allowed to leave its office premises by 7 pm-7.30 pm, a senior CGST official said.

In case, during any ongoing proceeding, a taxpayer is required to be kept in the office beyond 7/7.30 pm, then the commissioner’s approval would have to be taken by the CGST probe team as per the new instructions, the official said. These “preventive–vigilance” instructions were issued recently by KR Uday Bhaskar, chief commissioner of CGST and Central Excise, Mumbai zone, under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Bhaskar is a 1990–batch IRS officer who took charge last month and has in the past served as a Special Director (Western zone), Mumbai, with the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The CGST’s measures came in the wake of the CBI’s recommendation related to the installation of CCTV cameras at its offices, agency sources said. During two of its probes related to corruption complaints, the agency had noticed that CGST offices in Santacruz and in south Mumbai (Nariman Point) allegedly did not have CCTV cameras, sources said. The CBI had on March 18 booked two CGST superintendents of the Mumbai South Commissionerate, for allegedly seeking a bribe of ₹22 lakh from a gold bullion trader, who had detained till 3 am of March 15 to pressurise him into paying the bribe.

“I have instructed, at a meeting held recently in CGST, that those who are called to CGST offices must not be kept in the office beyond 7 pm-7.30 pm and that a senior officer, the commissioner, should be in the know if there is a need to keep anyone beyond the time. I have asked for the installation of CCTVs at all the offices, in such spaces that are meant for the public, like the corridors adjoining the entry/exit points of offices, which will bring transparency and at the same time, would not hamper official work,” Bhaskar told HT when asked about CGST’s measures in view of the recent CBI case.

“The commissioner has to be in the know in cases of summonses and warrants,” Bhaskar said. “These are steps of preventive vigilance, to ensure that any act of alleged corruption does not recur,” Bhaskar said. The Mumbai zone of the CGST covers 21 commissionerates and encompasses the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, where the new directives will be implemented. CGST encompasses all the taxes that were earlier applicable as central indirect taxes and are levied by the central government for the intrastate movement of goods and services.

The CBI’s Mumbai unit had on September 5 registered a case against eight accused persons, including six CGST officials (an additional commissioner, a joint commissioner and four superintendents), based on a complaint by a businessman, who owns a pharmaceutical trading firm. In his complaint, the businessman alleged that when he visited the CGST office in Santacruz on the evening of September 4, he was kept confined for 18 hours there and subjected to repeated use of force and verbal abuse by four CGST officials of superintendent rank who demanded a bribe of ₹80 lakh for not arresting him and favouring him in an on-going tax evasion probe. The bribe amount was later reduced to ₹60 lakh, of which ₹50 lakh was eventually paid. The finalised bribe of ₹60 lakh was alleged to be delivered to the CGST officers through an accused Chartered Accountant (CA).

The CBI had nabbed three of the accused, including a superintendent of CGST (anti-evasion), Mumbai West Commissionerate, and two private persons- the CA and a consultant, during its trap proceedings, while allegedly accepting part bribe amount of ₹20 lakh. An amount of ₹30 lakh of the total bribe amount was allegedly paid earlier through a hawala operator, which the CBI later recovered and seized. The CBI case was registered under sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to the offences of demand of undue advantage by public servants, taking undue advantage to influence public servants by corrupt or illegal means, abetment, conspiracy, wrongful confinement and voluntarily causing hurt.

Recently, the agency had also booked three other officials of the CGST, Belapur Commissionerate, for allegedly demanding and obtaining a bribe of ₹6 lakh from a Belapur firm for favours related to assessment/ dropping of demand related to service tax/ penalties in a separate case.