Gujarat: Central GST officer caught accepting Rs 1.25 lakh bribe

Ahmedabad, Oct 10 (IANS) Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) caught a Central GST officer red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 1.25 lakh on Thursday.The arrested official, Mohammad Rizwan Sheikh, a superintendent at the CGST Audit department in Ahmedabad, was apprehended along with Inspector Kuldeep Mulchand Kushwaha and a middleman, Bhumikbhai Bharatbhai Soni.The ACB’s action followed a complaint made to their toll-free number 1064. The officials demanded bribes concerning an alleged error found in the 2019-20 financial year accounts. The officials claimed a penalty was due and asked for a bribe to settle the matter.

The ACB acted on the complaint and caught the officials while they were accepting the bribe. The operation highlights the Gujarat ACB's ongoing efforts to tackle corruption, with numerous officials recently apprehended in similar cases.

The Gujarat ACB has intensified its crackdown on such activities to curb corrupt practices in the state's government departments.

Meanwhile, Mahesh Langa, a journalist, was arrested by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch in connection with an alleged GST fraud case. An FIR was lodged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using forged documents), 474 (possession of forged documents), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).

The case was initiated based on data mining inputs provided by Himanshu Joshi, a senior intelligence officer with the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) in Ahmedabad. According to the authorities, the network of entities, including DA Enterprises, engaged in a large-scale conspiracy to evade GST duties.

The FIR named 13 individuals and entities, including DA Enterprises, a firm allegedly owned by Langa’s brother, Manojkumar Rambhai Langa. Officials shared that a network of nearly 200 fraudulent firms is operating across the country in an organised manner, defrauding the government by availing and passing bogus input tax credits, thereby causing significant losses to the exchequer.