Mumbai: City sales tax joint commissioner held for graft

According to ACB officers, the complainant has several construction projects under way in Navi Mumbai as well as in the neighbouring areas, and in March this year, he received a notice from the Sales Tax department signed by Deputy Commissioner C V Tathre, asking for documents of transactions completed by the complainant from 2006 to 2008. The complainant contacted his Chartered Accountant (CA), and the matter was assigned to Irfan Bhopali, who regularly looked after all sales tax related matters for the complainant.

Bhopali allegedly told the complainant that he had met Tathre and found out that a fine of Rs four to five crore was going to be levied on the complainant, and that he would have to pay around Rs 1.5 crore if he wanted to “settle” the matter.

“The complainant met Tathre in his office, and Tathre told him that he had never issued any such notice. Tathre further told him that the format in which the notice was framed had been discontinued three years ago. The complainant told the same to Bhopali. However, Bhopali claimed that he knew the joint commissioner (Sales Tax) Ramdas Shinde and would take up the matter with him. This made the complainant suspicious,” said DSP Sunil Kalgutkar, ACB, Raigad.

The complainant’s business partner then went with Bhopali to meet Shinde, and during this meeting, it became clear that Shinde had issued the notice, and Shinde further demanded a bribe of Rs 60 lakh. On Sunday morning, police arrested both Bhopali and Shinde. By Sunday night, the ACB also found evidence indicating Shinde owns assets worth crores of rupees.  Both Shinde and Bhopali have a 20 per cent share in the firm, and the firm recently bought a plot of land in Panvel valued at Rs 6.46 crore, said officials.
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