India
Within a week of the assistant commissioner of sales tax getting arrested for taking a bribe of Rs1.75 lakh, two more sales tax officials in the city were booked by the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB).
Updated : Sep 22, 2011, 07:00 PM IST
Within a week of the assistant commissioner of sales tax getting arrested for taking a bribe of Rs1.75 lakh, two more sales tax officials in the city were booked by the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB).
The anti corruption agency has filed a case against the officials for allegedly demanding Rs15,000 as bribe from a city-based pharmaceutical agency owner.
ACB sources said Ketan Patel, owner of Om Agency, a pharmaceutical agency, had the audit of his firm for the year 2007-08 pending. On September 2, he went to the sales tax office in Bahumali Building near Lal Darwaja with bills and other documents.
However, HG Solanki, sales tax officer and Mahendra Patel, sales tax inspector, told him that he will have to pay Rs70,000 to Rs80,000 penalty for the delay in paying the tax. Ketan requested the officials to find some easy solution and the duo demanded Rs15,000 bribe to waive the fine. Ketan agreed to pay bribe money on September 5. At the same time, he lodged a complaint with ACB against Solanki and Mahendra Patel.
As stipulated, Ketan, in company of ACB personnel in disguise, met the sales tax officer and the inspector. However, they refused to accept the bribe and asked Ketan to come on some other occasion. The agency owner and the ACB approached them thrice but the officials told Ketan to come with money only after he was intimated by post that his sale tax dues had been cleared.
All the four meetings were recorded by the ACB. Based on that evidence, the bureau registered a case against Solanki and Mahendra Patel for demanding bribe on Wednesday.