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Informer’s petition got top income tax official arrested
It was an informer’s petition in the Bombay High Court that put Nagpur Income Tax Commissioner Ajoy Kumar Singh in jail, nearly three years after a disproportionate assets case was registered against him, reports Manish Pachouly.
It was an informer’s petition in the Bombay High Court that put Nagpur Income Tax Commissioner Ajoy Kumar Singh in jail, nearly three years after a disproportionate assets case was registered against him.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday arrested Singh (46) and his wife Mrinalika (44) from Nagpur, for the case that was registered in February 2007, when he was posted in Mumbai as Additional Commissioner of Income Tax. They were brought to Mumbai on Tuesday.
Two years and eight months after that case was registered, the CBI had not filed a chargesheet.
A summary chargesheet was filed only on Tuesday, following a contempt petition filed against the CBI by income tax informer Devendra Doctor in the High Court. On October 8, the HC directed the CBI to file the chargesheet in two weeks. The CBI arrested the couple before filing the chargesheet.
Doctor has been chasing Singh since January 2003, when he first filed a complaint against him with the CBI. He did this after Singh had, allegedly on Doctor’s information, raided a Tardeo businessman and seized a large sum of cash. Doctor alleged that Singh had misappropriated a part of the cash.
When the CBI did not act on his complaint, Doctor approached the High Court in November 2007. When the case came up for hearing, the CBI told the court it had already registered a disproportionate assets case against Singh in February 2007.
The court, in February this year, directed the CBI to file a chargesheet in the case without any delay. When the CBI failed to do this, Doctor filed a contempt petition against the CBI in August. On October 8, the HC directed the CBI to file the chargesheet within two weeks. “It was only after this contempt petition that the CBI swung into action,” said Doctor.
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