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CBI arrests retired IRS officer Sanjay Srivastava for alleged corruption
New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested retired Indian Revenue Service officer Sanjay Kumar Srivastava for alleged corruption. Srivastava
New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday arrested retired Indian Revenue Service officer Sanjay Kumar Srivastava for alleged corruption. Srivastava was booked and his house raided by the agency in July. He passed 104 backdated orders in June after being asked to retire by the government.
During raids at his residence in July, CBI recovered Rs 2.47 crore worth of jewellery, Rs 16.44 lakh of cash, watches worth Rs 19 lakh, documents detailing property worth crores, and Rs 1.3 crore in bank accounts, according to CBI officials.
The 1989 batch IRS officer also filed contempt proceedings against former revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia and current revenue secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, which were dismissed by the Supreme Court in July.
Government officials who didn’t want to be named said that Srivastava, as IT Commissioner, used to make unsubstantiated allegations against anyone who didn’t see things his way.
“In an as many as eight cases, the High Court and the Central Administrative Tribunal passed strictures and warnings and imposed fines on him for his scandalous allegations against some lady officers and other senior officers. In one case he was ordered to undergo civil imprisonment for 15 days for scandalous allegations against the former Chairman and Members of the central Board of Direct Taxes,” said one government official.
In the CBI case, registered on July 4 for corruption, cheating and criminal conspiracy on a complaint from Anuja Sarangi (director general of income tax, vigilance) it is alleged that as Income Tax Commissioner (Appeals) Noida, Srivastava, prior to his compulsory retirement (on June 11, 2019) passed orders backdated December 2018.
According to CBI’s FIR , Srivastava “indulged in acts of omission and commission adversarial to the interest of revenue...; all these orders liable to have been uploaded on ITBA (income tax business application) system, were uploaded between June 11 and June 13 this year after his remitting the office”.
“There is also indication of falsification of record to allude towards dispatch of these orders on June 7, 2019 whereas they were dispatched on June 14,” the complaint adds.
“Sanjay Kumar Srivastava also passed 13 orders which were outside his jurisdiction. It was claimed that 104 orders were passed by SK Srivastava during December 2018, however many of them were uploaded to the central server using his RSA token (used by officers to verify their credentials) only after his retirement,” said the FIR.
“It is apprehended that either the orders were not passed by Srivastava during December 2018, or if the orders were indeed passed during December 2018, then the possibility of undue financial gains by delaying the issue of orders cannot be ruled out.”
The complaint further claimed that “it is apprehended that role of private players like contractual engaged/outsourced staff in above activities was very evident and requires in-depth investigation”.
