BHUBANESWAR: The CBI has registered a case against officials of GST and Central Excise, audit commissionerate, of Bhubaneswar circle in connection with a bribery case.
Earlier, four persons, including three GST officials and an employee of a private university here, were arrested for their alleged involvement in the case.
“The FIR has been lodged against some employees of GST and Central Excise audit commissionerate and the private university. Further probe is on to ascertain the involvement of others,” said a CBI officer.
Sources said one of the Superintendents of GST and Central Excise audit commissionerate Artabhanjan Kar had issued a notice to a private university on the outskirts of the city to submit certain documents for the financial year 2017-2018.
Subsequently, Kar had visited the institute/trust along with his team for carrying out an inspection/audit earlier this month. He found out that the university had committed certain GST violations during the financial year 2017-18 as well as previous years and it was liable to pay a huge tax and penalty amounting to about Rs 5 crore per year.
Kar has been accused of demanding Rs 10 lakh bribe from the account officer of the institute to settle the GST issues at a very less amount of tax and not to raise the violation matters.
On a tip-off, the central agency had conducted a raid at a hotel in Kharavela Nagar on Tuesday and had caught Kar, two other Superintendents of GST Pradip Kumar Acharya, and NN Sahoo along with the university's account officer Ashutosh Padhy red-handed while exchanging Rs 10 lakh.
"Searches were conducted at the property of the accused and incriminating documents were seized. They were produced before the Special Judge CBI here on Wednesday and remanded in judicial custody," the officer added.