Govt compulsorily retires tax officers over extortion, bribe, sexual harassment

Agencies
June 11, 2019

New Delhi, Jun 11: The government has compulsorily retired almost a dozen senior tax officers on charges ranging from extortion, bribe and sexual harassment.

The axe has fallen on about 12 senior officers of the rank of chief commissioners, principal commissioners, commissioners of income tax department under rule FR (fundamental rule) 56 (j) of central civil services (pension) rules.

The officers include Ashok Agarwal, joint commissioner of Income Tax and former deputy director, ED; S.K. Srivastava, commissioner (Appeal, NOIDA; Homi Rajvansh, IRS 1985 batch; B.B. Rajendra Prasad; Ajoy Kumar Singh; B. Arulappa; Alok Kumar Mitra; Chander Saini Bharti; Andasu Ravinder; Vivek Batra; Swetabh Suman and Ram Kumar Bhargava.

This is major crackdown by Modi government 2.0 on bureaucrats and officials indulging in alleged corruption practices.

Among the key tax officials shown the door is Ashok Agarwal who has remained suspended from 1999 to 2014. He faced serious allegations of corruption and extortion from businessman accused of helping late 'godman' Chandraswami. Agarwal was found to have acquired ill-gotten wealth to the tune of Rs 12 crore and faced a CBI enquiry.

The 1989-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer has also been retired prematurely as he faced charges of alleged sexual harassment.

Some of the tax officers forced to exit the service acquired movable and immovable properties without obtaining required approvals.

One of the disgraced officer Homi Rajvansh had illegal acquired assets worth Rs 3.17 crore. Finance Ministry sources said Rajvansh was arrested by CBI after absconding from his headquarters to evade arrest.

Another officer B.B. Rajendra Prasad was arrested by the CBI on allegations of passing favourable order for illegal gratifications while S.K. Srivastava, Commissioner (Appeal), NOIDA is accused of sexual harassment to two women IRS officers of Commissioner rank.

In the case of Ajoy Kumar Singh, sources said that CBI, ACB, Mumbai, had registered a disproportionate assets case when Singh was Additional Commissioner of Income Tax, Mumbai. He was also arrested by the CBI in connection with the case and placed under suspension w.e.f. 25.10.2009.

Officers have also been compulsorily retired for incompetence as in the case of B Arulappa. He allegedly proved to be ineffective as a supervisory officer and failed to ensure assignment of important cases having large tax implication to senior and experienced officers. But, ministry sources said that Alok Kumar Mitra is allegedly involved in many cases of corruptions and extortion and passed many wrong and malafide assessment orders which were later on reversed by the appellate authorities.

On the other hand, Chander Saini Bharti was apprehended by CBI in connection with a trap case and the bribe money of Rs 30 lakh was recovered from 'angadiya' (courier) used by him. He was allegedly found using hawala channels for transferring the ill-gotten money.

Swetabh Suman was arrested by CBI in New Delhi on April 13, 2018 for allegedly demanding Rs 50 lakh for giving relief in a shell company matter to a businessman. The amount was recovered from a middle-man and searches were carried out by CBI on the premises linked to Shri Swetabh Suman in Guwahati, Jorhat, Shillong, Noida and Delhi.

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News Network
May 29,2020

New Delhi, May 29: With the highest spike of 7,466 more COVID-19 cases and 175 deaths reported in the past 24 hours, India's COVID-19 tally reached 1,65,799 on Friday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The number of active coronavirus cases stands at 89,987 while 71,105 people have been cured or recovered and one patient has migrated, it said. The death toll due to the infection has reached 4,706 in the country.

Maharashtra is the worst affected state with 59,546 cases. Tamil Nadu has recorded as many as 19,372 cases while Gujarat and Delhi have recorded 15,562 and 16,281 coronavirus cases respectively.

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News Network
January 18,2020

Kanpur, Jan 18: Kanpur has witnessed an Unnao-like incident as the out on bail accused in rape case attack the family members of the victim. The mother of the victim, who later died in the hospital, was brutally attacked by the accused. The accused reportedly attacked the victim's mother and her aunt on January 8.

The actual rape case goes back to 2018 when a group of men abducted a minor girl from her own society. The accused had reportedly raped her and also beaten up her mother.

A video of mother being beaten up reportedly went viral soon after.

The mother of the victim had reportedly filed a complaint against one of the accused for abducting and molesting her daughter two years ago at a tannery falling under jurisdiction of Chakeri police station. The main accused along with five others was booked under section 354 of the IPC (sexual assault of children) and sent to jail. Around two weeks ago, the accused got bail and on January 9 they attacked the deceased and her sister.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

Hyderabad, Feb 26: Hyderabad Police on Tuesday registered a case against well-known poet Imran Pratapgarhi for his statement asking why there was "no Shaheen Bagh in Hyderabad".

According to Charminar Police, the complaint was registered by Sub-Inspector S Guruswamy, who was on duty at the QQ Stadium on February 24 where an Ehtaji Mishaira (Poetry Program) against the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register Commission and National Population Register was held.

Permission for the said event was granted by Hyderabad Additional Commissioner of Police to the program organisers with certain guidelines including that poetry program should be held on February 24 from 6 pm to 9 pm, and no speaker should give provocative speeches in the program.

However, police said that the program was started by the organisers at 6 pm and continued till 9:48 pm even after police officers asked them to end the event by 9 pm. The program was attended by around 3,000 members at QQ stadium.

According to police, while addressing the meeting Pratapgarhi said: "Mujhe hairath hai us Hyderabad mein koi Shaheen Bagh kyu nahi hai (I am surprised why there is no Shaheen Bagh in Hyderabad)", which is "provocative" and may cause fear to any section of the public.

In this regard, a case has been registered against organisers for disobeying public servants' orders and the poet has been booked for delivering provocative statements under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Further investigation is underway.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir took to Twitter to condemn the police action.

"Hyderabad Police booked a case against poet Imran Pratapgarhi for expressing surprise on why there is no Shaheen Bagh in Hyderabad. For police, this sentence is provocative. Is Shaheen Bagh not a part of India?," Shabbir tweeted.

"Shame on TRS Government and Hyderabad Police for targeting a poet for no-fault," he added.

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