The CBI conducted searches at the premises of a deputy director and a senior Intelligence officer of the Central GST and a private person in the city and Pune on Tuesday in a case of Rs 1 crore bribe demand.
The CBI recovered Rs 4 lakh in cash and jewellery during the search of the deputy director's premises. No one was arrested in the case. The two officers had demanded Rs 1 crore bribes from a businessman, owner of a Haryana-based firm inMarch last year while they were posted at the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) office in Pune last year. The accused officer asked the businessman for the money in four instalments and Rs 25 lakh as the first installment.
The accused officers, deputy director Vimlesh Singh, IRS, and the senior intelligence officer Rahul Kumar, asked the complainant for the payment of the bribe in Patna and Pune. It was decided that the first instalment of Rs 25 lakh needed to be paid in Pune and the accused officers provided a mobile number to the businessman stating that a private person will call him for collecting the money and will tell him about the location. Kumar mostly negotiated the deal and he was using separate mobile phone numbers to communicate to the businessman.
Last year, DGGI, directorate general GST intelligence, Pune, was investigating a case against the firm for evading GST payment and searched the firm operating from a pre-school premises in Haryana. Subsequently, the firm's owner and office-bearers were called to Pune for questioning several times.
Singh and Kumar asked the firm's owner to pay the bribe to avoid harassment and for closing the investigation. The firm's owner recorded the phone calls about bribe demand and complained to the CBI in last April .
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