One tax officer from Tamil Nadu among 22 sacked from CBIC

S Ashok Raj, Superintendent, CGST, attached to Chennai zone, has been sacked by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) over corruption and other charges. The CBIC has sacked officials from a total of 12 zones, including Nagpur, Bhopal, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Meerut, Mumbai, Bengaluru Customs, Mumbai Customs Zone II and Chandigarh.

Tax officers noted that the CBI had laid a trap against Superintendent of Central Excise S Ashok Raj at his office at Bibikulam near Madurai in 2016, as he had allegedly demanded bribe from a cable TV operator Muruganandham. CBI caught the officer red-handed while he was receiving Rs 75,000. However, they could not arrest him as a group of people reached there, attacked the CBI officers and rescued Ashok Raj and fled from the spot.

Following this, CBI and local police filed cases against 10 people, including Ashok Raj. He then had surrendered before a court in Chennai.

CBI team had then seized over Rs 4.50 lakh, 30 sovereigns and property documents Ashok Raj’s house. Subsequently, he was allowed to continue in the service after a brief period of suspension.

The CBIC officers who have been sacked include superintendents KK Uikey, SR Parate, Kailash Verma, KC Mandal, MS Damor, RS Gogiya, Kishore Patel, JC Solanki, SK Mandal, Govind Ram Malviya, AU Chhapargare from Bhopal, Deepak M Ganeyan and D Ashok of Bengaluru; Pramod Kumar from Delhi; Mukesh Jain and Navneet Goyal from Jaipur; Achintya Kumar Pramanicik of Kolkata; VK Singh from Meerut; DR Chaturvedi from Mumbai, VP Singh of Chandigarh and Leela Mohan Singh, AO, Mumbai Customs Zone II.

It may be noted that as many as 27 high ranking IRS officers, including 12 officers from CBDT, were forced to retire in June.