The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested a Commissioner of Income-Tax (Appeals-30), Mumbai, and the Managing Director of Essar Group of Companies and four others in an alleged bribery case.
I-T Commissioner BB Rajendra Prasad, Managing Director of Essar Group of Companies Pradip Mittal, Accounts Officer in Essar Group Vipin Bajpai, Chartered Accountant Shreyas Parikh, real-estate agent Suresh Jain and his relative Manish Jain are those arrested.
According to the CBI, a case was registered against the 1992 batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Prasad and others.
Mittal, Bajpai, Manish and Parikh were produced before a special CBI court on Wednesday and were granted transit remand.
The source further said that Mittal was monitoring the entire process on behalf of the Trust and was in touch with Parikh. On April 21, 2017, an order was passed by Prasad favouring the Trust."
"For this order, Prasad demanded a bribe of approximately Rs 2 crore and wanted the money to be delivered to Manish Jain in Mumbai, who, in turn, transferred it to Jain in Visakhapatnam. Prasad had visited Visakhapatnam on leave and allegedly demanded Jain to deliver part of the money at his residence in Visakhapatnam," alleged a CBI officer.
The CBI officers laid a trap and caught Prasad, who received part of the bribe (Rs 19.34 lakh) from Jain. During investigation, the remaining amount of Rs 1.50 crore (approx), received by Jain earlier on behalf of Prasad was also recovered.
Searches were also conducted in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam, including the offices and residence of the accused persons, and they led to the recovery of several property documents, details of bank accounts, and three lockers.
"There was a routine survey of records, conducted by CBI at the offices of two of our executives in connection with some I-T assessment orders.
