Updated on: 01ST MAY 2023 12:41 PM IST | Mumbai
S S NADAR | news@debotimes.in

According to senior CBI officials, GST anti-evasion superintendent Dhirendra Kumar is "absconding" after a failed trap and escaped with the bribe amount, while GST officials blamed the CBI for implicating their officers in a false case of corruption.

A war of letters has erupted between two central agencies over a failed corruption trap, missing bribe money, and an absconding official.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Anti-Corruption and Central Goods and Service Tax (CGST) Anti-Evasion officials are at loggerheads after a failed trap last week to nab a GST superintendent who allegedly demanded ?5 lakhs bribe from a bullion trader evading GST.

"Absconding" officer

According to senior CBI officials, GST anti-evasion superintendent Dhirendra Kumar is "absconding" after a failed trap and escaped with the bribe amount, while GST officials blamed the CBI for implicating their officers in a false case of corruption.

The CBI Anti-Corruption office received a complaint of harassment by the CGST Anti-Evasion unit conducting searches at bullion trader's offices and workshops in Zaveri Bazaar on the pretext of unearthing GST evasion. The jewellers and bullion traders were also summoned for questioning.

GST Superintendent Dhirendra Kumar had allegedly summoned a bullion trader to the anti-evasion unit's office at Churchgate after searches on April 21 and detained them till late at night. "A bullion trader complained of bribe demand by a GST official to close the case. A trap was laid after verification, but the accused managed to escape with the marked currency notes and is absconding," a CBI official alleged.

GST Superintendent Dhirendra Kumar had allegedly asked the bullion trader to deliver ?5 lakh cash at an intersection near Dadar TT circle, and the CBI laid a trap with marked currency notes of the bribe amount to nab the accused red-handed.

CBI failed to catch the officer

While the CBI team lay in wait for the GST official, another bullion trader's employee, Mukesh, arrived and took the cash on behalf of Dhirendra Kumar. CBI sleuths followed Mukesh to catch him giving the marked bribe amount to the GST official but lost him in the crowd, and the trap failed.

The Anti-Corruption officers finally caught the employee Mukesh at his home, but the money had already changed hands by then. The search team could not find the bribe amount, and the employee confessed the cash was already delivered to Dhirendra Kumar, who was reportedly waiting in a nearby lane at Dadar TT.

Embarrassed, the CBI team rushed to Income Tax Colony, Antop Hill, to the official quarters of Dhirendra Kumar to seize the marked notes. The late-night raids at flat number 235 of building number 11, Income Tax Colony, failed as Dhirendra Kumar had already left with his wife and children. Suspecting that the accused was probably hiding with his close friend GST Superintendent Prabhat Kumar in the same building, the CBI team knocked at the officer's home to question him about the whereabouts of his absconding colleague.

Non-cooperation of GST officials in its investigation

Desperate, the CBI team asked Superintendent Prabhat Kumar to call down Brijesh Kumar, another Superintendent working with Dhirendra Kumar in the GST Anti-Evasion unit from adjacent building no 16 for enquiries. Scared of arrest, Brijesh Kumar allegedly attempted to escape from the Income Tax Colony with the CBI team in hot pursuit scaling six feet high compound wall mistaking him for the fugitive Dhirendra Kumar. Finally, the CBI team had to call off the chase at dawn and wrote a strong letter to the CGST chief principal commissioner about the non-cooperation of GST officials in its investigation.

Meanwhile, GST Superintendent Brijesh Kumar has complained to the GST Commissioner about the midnight search operation and intimidation done by the CBI at his house. He has alleged a witch-hunt by the CBI and the implication of GST officers in false cases of corruption.