BENGALURU: A special CBI court has sentenced a GST official to undergo three years of simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5 lakh in a graft case.
Central Excise and Central Tax (GST) superintendent Jitendra Kumar Dagur, hailing from Uttar Pradesh, was found guilty of accepting a bribe of Rs 25,000 to show official favour and waive of the tax and penalty proposed to be imposed for the returns filed by the complainant for 2015-16.
Giving reason for imposing an exemplary fine of Rs 5 lakh on the accused, the court pointed out that it would meet the ends of justice as a lot of expenditure from taxpayers’ money has been incurred on conducting the investigation and trial.
“Dagur was supposed to discharge his duties honestly and diligently in the interest of the country ... But if such officials are involved in corruption to give favourable relief to people who are supposed to pay taxes, a wrong message will be sent to taxpayers and the economic condition of the country will be ruined,” said Judge H A Mohan.
The court noted that the accused telling the complainant, “Don’t ask these matters over the phone, you have to bring silently and handover silently. Never ask over the phone these types of things...” clearly indicates that this conversation was regarding the bribe of Rs 50,000 for doing an official favour.
Dagur was trapped by the CBI while he was accepting a Rs 25,000 bribe when he was serving at the Honnavar range of the Central Excise and Central Tax (GST) in Uttara Kannada division from complainant Jagadish Subray Bhave in March 2021. Dagur had demanded Rs 50,000 to be paid in two instalments.
The complainant recorded the conversations on his mobile phone both in audio and video mode and filed the complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act and laid the trap.