Bribery case: CBI suspects larger conspiracy in probe against IT officer

CBI investigates senior IT officers in bribery case after arresting officer for accepting ₹4 lakh bribe for lower TDS certificate.

MUMBAI: Four days after an officer from the Income Tax (IT) department was arrested in an alleged bribery case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is ascertaining the possible role of a few senior officers in the case.

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The agency on Friday arrested the IT Department’s officer for allegedly accepting a bribe of ₹4 lakh from a complainant for issuing a lower TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) certificate.

After seizing the accused’s phone, CBI conducted forensic imaging — part of the cyber forensics process for collecting evidence — to obtain data from it to examine whether other IT Department officers might have been involved in the larger conspiracy and if there were irregularities concerning other customers as well, CBI sources said.

The agency is looking into his WhatsApp chats, among other phone details, and might obtain his specimen voice sample as well as part of the case probe into allegations levelled against him by the complainant, CBI sources said.

The agency initiated its probe against the officer after the complaint alleged that he had asked for an undue advantage of ₹5.04 lakh from the complainant for issuing a lower TDS certificate for the sale of a property of the latter’s maternal uncle who is a Non-Resident Indian (NRI), agency sources said. The accused had allegedly initially demanded an undue advantage of 2 per cent of the total deal value of the property worth ₹5.04 crore, but later reduced the demand to 1%, the source added.

Later, the accused had allegedly agreed to accept a bribe of ₹4 lakh from the complainant. The CBI subsequently laid a trap and caught the accused red-handed while accepting the bribe in his office at Mumbai, according to the CBI.

The CBI had carried out searches at the office and residential premises of the accused in Mumbai last week, which led to the alleged recovery of ₹15 lakh in cash, gold ornaments, and papers related to investments in immovable and movable properties and the same are under the scrutiny of the agency, agency sources said.