Rs 15 lakh bribery case: Court hands 4-year jail term to senior Income Tax official

Jodhpur, Sep 26 (IANS) A Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, caught taking a bribe of Rs 15 lakh, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs 1.10 lakh, by a Special CBI Court in Jodhpur on Friday, an official said.

One of his colleagues in the Income Tax department was also handed down similar punishment in the decade old case, the CBI official said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered the case against P.K. Sharma, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Jodhpur, Shailendra Bhandari, ITO, Jodhpur, and others on March 31, 2015.

The CBI laid a trap and caught Chandra Prakash alias Chandu, a private person, red-handed while taking a bribe of Rs 15 lakh from a complainant.

His questioning revealed that he had collected the bribe as per directions of Bhandari and Sharma, the CBI said in a statement.

Following the recovery of the bribe from Chandra Prakash and subsequent conversation held among him, Shailendra Bhandari and P.K. Sharma, they all were arrested by the probe agency.

After completion of investigation, a charge-sheet was filed against all three in the Special CBI Court, Jodhpur.

The Special Court, after trial, acquitted accused Chandra Prakash of all the charges.

On Friday, the Special Court convicted and sentenced CCIT and ITO Jodhpur to four years’ imprisonment with a fine of Rs 1.10 lakh each in the case, said the statement.

In a separate corruption case, a CBI court in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur convicted and sentenced a former Sub-Post Master of Khimlasa Sub Post Office, Sagar district, to five years’ rigorous imprisonment for misappropriating more than Rs 70 lakh from depositors’ accounts.

The court on Thursday sentenced Vishal Kumar Ahirwar, who was serving at the post office during 2020–22, to five years’ rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 32,000.

According to the CBI, a case was registered against Ahirwar on November 17, 2022, following allegations that he had misused his official position to siphon off funds by manipulating withdrawal processes.

--IANS

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