CHENNAI: The special CBI court in Chennai convicted and sentenced seven persons, including a tax official and a police personnel, to rigorous imprisonment for four years and slapped a total fine of `2.4 lakh on them in a case related to income tax refund fraud.
The convicts have been identified as the then senior tax assistant in the Department of Income Tax Babu Prasath Kumar and his brother who is the present inspector (Law and Order) in Anna Nagar of the Greater Chennai Police Praveen Kumar, and four others including Trewellyn Marion Corneille, P Stephen, A Gopikrishna, Venkatesh and C Gunaseelan.
A senior GCP officer said, “Praveen Kumar has been on leave for the past few days but he did not cite the court proceedings for taking leave.”
The CBI registered the case on December 31, 2019 based on a complaint received from the assistant commissioner of Income Tax, Chennai, regarding fraudulent generation and issuance of income tax refunds through manipulation of the system using forged documents and fictitious identities during the period from 04.06.2015 to 31.08.2019 resulting in wrongful loss to the tune of `2.38 crore (approx) to the IT department.
Investigation revealed that the Babu Prasath Kumar, the then senior tax assistant in the Department of Income Tax, Chennai, played a key role in the fraud and routed the proceeds of crime to various family members and associates to conceal the illegal gain. After completion of investigation, CBI filed seven charge sheets on March 1, 2021 against the accused.