He helped I-T dept bust an A’bad tax evader; but he claimed reward only after 20 yrs, when luck had made him a beggar.
A beggar wasting away on Ahmedabad pavements, Rameshbhai Patel (not his real name), despaired of ever reclaiming his earlier life in America, crammed with a mistress and sex.
As he reflected on his fall, as alarming as a Bollywood drama, it struck Patel that he could at least claim the informer's commission that was waiting for him at the income-tax department for 20 years.
For the destitute Patel, whose adulterous swing broke his marriage in Gujarat, and whose illegal immigration into the US reserved a stay for him in the Sabaramati prison, the I-T department would have been an unlikely saviour. But in the end, I-T detectives determined that he was indeed deserving of Rs 3 lakh for his role in exposing a tax-evading Ahmedabad businessman, in 1989.
An informer's role comes with considerable risks, but as the flashback of Patel's story shows, he levied some danger on his life.
The story begins with the income-tax department, Ahmedabad, carrying out a search-and-seizure operation targeting a city-based businessman, based on a tip-off from Patel. The department successfully unearthed large volumes of unaccounted assets.
However, because of legal intricacies, it took almost 15 years for the case to be settled and the commission of Rs3 lakh to be approved for the informer.
As it happened, Patel had taken off to the US - leaving his wife behind - through illegal channels, soon after the I-T operation.
In the two to three years that it took American authorities to discover him, Patel had begun an illicit affair. When news reached his wife, she was so infuriated that she sold all their property in Ahmedabad and moved to the US.
Evidently, the reunion with her husband was not enough to assuage her fury, so she plunged into an extramarital affair. In fact, according to I-T sources apprised of the sex-charged saga, the woman apparently needed the solace of several lovers.
At any rate, in time, Patel found himself held by the firm arms of American law. After serving around three years in a US jail, he was sent to Ahmedabad's Sabarmati prison, where he remained for two to three more years.
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