• Notification Date: 07-05-2022
• Notification No: N/A

CBI Seeks Prosecutions of GST Officials on Bribery Cases

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has appealed to the ministry of finance to prosecute those GST officials who were involved in the disproportionate and the bribery cases. GST official, Bollineni Gandhi and IRS official, Ch Sudha Rani were in connection with these cases. The ministry is yet to arrive to a decision in this matter. CBI is about to file a charge sheet against these two officials as soon as the permission is granted from the ministry of finance.

CBI had arrested GST official Bollineni Gandhi back in April 20, 2021 regarding the case of Disproportionate Assets as he refused to cooperate in the investigation. In the investigation, it was discovered that Bollineni’s wife was conducting a consultancy service. The clients have been carrying out the transactions with him through emails as well as by meeting him in person. There were several witnesses to these incidents as well.

Moreover, CBI carried out further investigations and discovered several assets of Gandhi in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh which was in total worth Rs.4 crore. Bollineni Gandhi was also involved in another case along with IRS official Ch Sudha Rani. The case was about these officials receiving bribe worth Rs.5 crore. As per the investigations of CBI, the accused official had submitted fake COVID-19 positive reports under the name of his family members.

Even in this suspension period Bollineni has been offered a promotion. He has been promoted from the position of superintendent to the assistant commissioner. He has been posted to Hyderabad on an adhoc basis by the ministry of finance.

The Central Bureau of Investigation received a complaint from the bribe giver Satya Sidhar Reddy and immediately issued an FIR against Gandhi regarding the bribery case on 11 September, 2019.

Sudha Rani was the deputy commissioner of GST at that time. Along with Gandhi, she detected a fake invoice case. In that case, fake invoices worth Rs.1,289 crore was raised. In that fraudulent case, 224 crore illegal input tax credit were claimed and involved eight companies under the name of Reddy and others. The two GST officials together claimed and received bribe of Rs.5 crore from Reddy in this case.