Jharkhand IT Commissioner arrested in graft case

Ranchi/New Delhi, July 13 (IANS) : Jharkhand's Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Tapas Kumar Dutta, has been arrested by the CBI for corruption charges, an official said on Thursday.

"We arrested Dutta in Ranchi on Wednesday night after his day-long questioning," Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) spokesperson R.K. Gaur told IANS.

The CBI move came hours after it conducted raids at 23 locations in West Bengal and Jharkhand in connection with the case.

The CBI questioned Dutta at the IT office in Ranchi on Wednesday.

The agency had on Wednesday morning carried out raids at 18 residential and office premises of Dutta and other accused in Kolkata and five places in Ranchi.

This followed the seizure of Rs 3.5 crore in cash and five kg of gold from the premises owned by Dutta.

The CBI filed a FIR against Dutta, posted in Ranchi, and three colleagues -- Additional Commissioner of Income Tax Arvind Kumar, Income Tax Officer Ranjeet Kumar Lal and Income Tax Officer (Tech) identified only as Ganguly -- following allegations of criminal conspiracy.

The four officials of the Income Tax department, along with five businessmen and a Chartered Accountant, have been booked on charges of criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct.

Dutta and his colleagues were accused of favouring five Kolkata-based businessmen -- identified as Biswanath Agarwal, Santosh Chowdhury, Aakash Agarwal, Vinod Agarwal and Arvind Agarwal -- and their companies by taking illegal gratification.

"During 2016 and 2017, Dutta entered into a criminal conspiracy with other Income Tax officials, the (five) businessmen, infamous entry operators and the Chartered Accountant for getting Income Tax assessment files of different assessee companies transferred from Kolkata and Hazaribagh to Ranchi for providing undue favour to those who had been charged with heavy tax liability in lieu of huge bribes," the official said.

The official also said that Dutta issued favourable orders in the case of private companies, which had paid a huge bribe.