In an incident kept under wraps so far, there has been an alleged break-in in the office of one of the Chief Commissioners of Income Tax who has an office on the fourth floor of Aayakar Bhavan in Mumbai. The break-in, The Indian Express has learnt, was discovered after Ganesh Chaturti holiday in Mumbai on September 2. The Chief Commissioner, Alka Tyagi, is the supervisory head of units that assess taxes of all companies and banks located in Fort, Ballard Estate, Colaba and Nariman Point, a large commercial hub in Mumbai. Among the assessment cases being handled by her unit are the Deepak Kochhar-ICICI Bank case, the Ambani family Black Money Act case besides several important search cases. Officials said the break-in was discovered by Income Tax security staff in the morning when they found locked cupboards broken in and ransacked — several files and papers were “lying in disarray” a member of the administration team employed in the building said. No FIR has been filed although souces said the Chief Commissioner has sent a written complaint on the incident to Principal Chief Commissioner Satish Kumar Gupta who also has a chamber in the same building. Orders have been since been issued for all CCTV footage to be examined. Officials said photographs of the scene at the Chief Commissioner’s office have been taken but an assessment of what could have been allegedly stolen is still in progress. Meanwhile, security has been beefed up outside and for access to the offices of all Chief Commissioners in Mumbai. The Indian Express contacted Gupta and Tyagi for details of the incident but both declined to comment. The headquarters of the Income Tax department in Mumbai, Aayakar Bhavan, a seven storey-building, seats about 2000 employees. It has three entrances but only two are open to officers and the public. Each of the six floors of the building has about 80 rooms. The seventh floor is used as a guest house for senior tax officials. The building also houses a unit of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The public accesses the Aayakar Seva Kendra on its ground floor. Internally, members of the security team said, the building is secured by at least 100 closed-circuit TV cameras. However, there are a few blind spots, according to an official, who did not want to be named. “The security guards have always been manning all the entrances and checking ID cards of visitors but after the break-in, guards are now also checking the ID cards of all the employees irrespective of their rank and position. The CCTV cameras too are being monitored 24X7,” said the official.
